


Objects in Motion

by Winterstar



Series: This is battle; this is war. [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Depression, Dom/sub, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Impact Play, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 12:36:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A love story.</p><p>This is just the beginning.</p><p>Nick Fury asks Tony to watch Steve, to help him process this new life, his new present. Tony decides the best way to do that is to get out of Dodge. They end up in a house on a lake together, finding each other and falling in love. The question is - will it last once Steve finds out Tony's secret....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Objects in Motion

**Author's Note:**

> This is the longest story I've written for the fandom to date. I hope you enjoy it. It has discussions of depression and suicide though no character is suicidal. 
> 
> Please take note of the warnings and tags. And now the love story...............

Objects in Motion

CHAPTER 1

When America’s Icon walks through the door and, as predicted by the one-eyed wonder, asks, “Is it possible for you to make me disappear for a few weeks or so.” Tony has a little bit of an aneurism. It isn’t like he wants Fury to be wrong – well, that’s just lying to himself – he does like Fury to be wrong, in fact he craves it. Yet, there’s something in old Gramps’ attitude that twists down in Tony’s gut until he feels like he wants to give into all of his high school fantasies about said hero.

Instead, he grimaces, slugs back his drink, then shakes the empty glass so that ice cubes clink a little, and says, “You want to disappear? Captain Fucking America wants to disappear.”

“It’s Captain America, thank you. And no, Steve Rogers would like to disappear. Maybe not disappear but, possibly, stop being followed and watched like I’m a porcelain doll and might shatter.” He stands there with his leather bomber jacket on and plaid shirt collar hanging out the unzipped top. His jeans are a tad too tight, but they’re pristine and not worn like Tony’s. It is painfully clear he doesn’t know what to do with his hands since he keeps opening and closing them. There’s a bag he’s dropped at the door which is suspiciously round and shield shaped. 

“Fury’s bitches giving you problems, Cap?”

He flinches at Tony’s language but doesn’t correct him. Since New York and the time in between, any time Tony has interacted with the good Captain his demeanor has mellow a half degree or so. “I just need to get away. I don’t want everyone watching me all the time.”

“Any particular place you’d like to go, or are you just taking off on that road trip again?”

It is a widely known fact that the Captain tried to motorcycle his way around America and get his bearings that way. Unfortunately, during the battle his face had been revealed and matching that with old war time footage, Steve Rogers sans Captain America outfit had been besieged by press, fans, hecklers, and even a few people with more nefarious plans. His trip across country ended somewhere around Cleveland – or so Tony heard. It isn’t like he kept tabs on him or anything. 

Never.

The Captain drops his head down and then looks up with a sheepish but earnest look on his face. “Somewhere I can think, just get away. I just need to find someplace away from all the noise, and stuff.”

It occurs to Tony that the man before him had little time to adjust. Thawed from the ice and then thrown into a battle to save New York City from fucking aliens. How the hell does anyone handle that at all? Tony narrows his eyes at Rogers, and lifts a brow. By nature, Tony leaves the social sciences alone, doesn’t come in contact with them, stays far, far away. This has always been his failings with any of his personal relationships, especially with Pepper. He doesn’t pay attention; he thinks things will eventually fall into their correct spaces. Psychology and sociology are ruled by fucking fake facts, rules, not universal constants and laws of physics – which are the same EVERYWHERE (okay, except maybe a black hole but that’s a different story entirely). Yet, the whole idea of Captain America and his resurrection intrigues Tony, enough that he might make this his psychology project, Fury be damned. It would impress Pepper that he tried; at least she would see that he’s putting an honest foot forward to help another human being.

“Okay, so you want to get away?” Tony resists the urge to fold his arms around his chest; self-protection mode is not going to help his cause any. He needs to coax the timid field mice out into the real world, though he does inwardly frown at the idea of Captain America as a little mouse in the middle of a pasture somewhere. The idea of it makes him giggle a little too, but he stifles it so that Rogers doesn’t sprint away.

“Just for a while. I know I have responsibilities, and I’m not trying to shurk them or anything. I just need-.”

Tony raises a hand to stop him. “I get it, I understand. You need some time to process. I’ve been there, done it myself. Actually, doing it right now.”

Rogers considers him with a look that somewhat penetrates Tony’s outer shell and he feels exposed and warm all at once. He doesn’t understand the warring emotions so he puts them aside and says, “I’ve got a nice place, out of the way. Not a big touristy place right now, it’s off season. We could go there.”

Rogers shuffles his feet and says, “We?”

“Yeah, look around, oh Captain, does it look like I’m staying in town?” Tony waves to the clutter of boxes and piles of tech lying in somewhat less than chaotic piles about the room. Rogers glances around and doesn’t seem the least bit impressed. Tony spells it out for him. “I’m leaving New York.”

“What? Why?” Rogers asks.

“Maybe I need some space, too. It isn’t like this is my home. I live in Malibu. This, this was a project, a point, an exclamation point.” He gestures to the whole of the tower. 

“A monument in the sky with your name plastered on it.”

Tony stutters to a stop and bites back his reply. “Yeah, something like that. But now-.”

“Now, it would be nice if people weren’t looking at you all the time.” 

Tony manages not to look surprised (he thinks). He forces himself to breathe in a steady rhythm because he refuses to allow such an ordinary statement take away his ability to move air into his lungs, and he’ll be damned if some old guy from his father’s youth understands him. His hands are itching to pour another drink, but he stops himself and he says, “Yeah, something like that.”

Rogers blinks a few times and keeps his face averted as if he’s holding on to the truth and doesn’t want anyone to see his features because he can’t play poker, he can’t tell that lie. In a low voice he says, “That sounds, good. It might be nice. For a while anyway.”

The last part feels like cold daggers. Tony wants to quiz him on why he would need to get away from him, why he would need to escape, but he stops himself. He gets little things, and he knows he shouldn’t. He isn’t about social adeptness. He isn’t about reading people or even remembering specifics about people. Christ, he couldn’t even recall that Pepper is deathly allergic to strawberries. Yet, Steve Rogers stands in his penthouse living room and bleeds all over the place. Tony can see all the wounds like they are his own, and for fuck’s sake, they are his own. He hates part of it, but there’s another part that unfurls like a blossom held tightly closed through the frost. 

He needs this warmth, this communal understanding of hell and life and truth.

“Okay, then,” he says after he clears his throat. “We’ll go.”

“Go where?”

“Just come back here tomorrow at noon and we’ll be set to leave.”

“Not a road trip,” Rogers says. “I’m not jumping on that train again.”

“No road trip. Well, a little driving, then we can find somewhere nice and quiet. Okay?”

Rogers just nods and, when Tony looks down for only a moment, disappears. He only sees the elevator slide close and there’s a miserable moment when he’s frightened that Rogers won’t return.

*oOo*  
Rogers returns.

Tony shoves the feeling of betrayal aside when he thinks of Fury and his damned visit just a week before America’s golden boy stepped through his door. The thought though bubbles up and he can’t ignore the idea that he’s being used by Fury and the whole of SHIELD. Of course, this whole thing will completely derail Natasha’s little profile on him about playing well with others and the ability to actually fulfill the needs of the team. Even that thought leaves him a little cold, though.

Somehow, he doesn’t like the idea of betraying the confidence of Steve Rogers. Who knew?

He decides to come clean, eventually. Rogers needs to get out of Dodge. Now. Gramps is practically jumping out of his tan Dockers when he walks out of the elevator to meet Tony on the sub-basement level of the tower. He has a duffle of his clothes and a pack on his back which is round and screams shield all over it, but Tony ignores it. 

Happy prepared the Mercedes Benz GL-class SUV. It’s the AMG model, so while it is heavy duty all terrain it also has the horse power and racing ability built in to it. He wanted the G model, but it was so fuck a duck ugly that he went with the slightly lower level class but supped it the hell up even after he received it custom made from the factory. 

The Captain’s eyes sparkle when he lays eyes on it, and something warm and bright coils inside of Tony and he can think of nothing but how adorable and beautiful his high school crush really is. 

“Now, that is the cat’s meow.”

Tony muffles a need to yowl at the good Captain. He ushers him to the vehicle and spouts about it. “It had the standard AMG seven speed transmission, but I played with it a bit once it came from the factory. Each of the gears now is slightly improved with better performance than what you can see on the street. But they did a good job on the differential and it performs well.”

“These things are supposed to be able to handle any road condition, right?”

Tony tilts his head and considers Rogers. “Well, not like a tank or anything. But it has a 40:60 front to rear torque that really allows most excellent handling off road, as well as any road condition you want to throw at it. She’s been modified, of course.”

Rogers’ eyes positively glitter as he places a hand on her silver hood. “Nice.”

“Very much,” Tony says. “You drive?”

Rogers raises a shoulder and says, “I can. Didn’t much in my day. Not a lot of cars around when I was a kid. Not like today, everyone seems to have more than one.” He looks around the sub-basement garage which is filled with a variety of cars, limos, trucks and SUVs from Tony’s personal collection. “But you seem to have taken that to its limit.”

Tony smiles. “Oh, this? This is nothing compared to what I have in Malibu.”

“In Malibu?”

“Where I live, lived. Keep up, old man. Pepper’s there now.”

“Pepper. She’s your girl?” 

“Um, a – no, I mean yes, but no.”

Rogers glares at him in not an angry way but in a confused, nearly exasperated way. A furrow appears between his eyebrows as he tries to make out the meaning of Tony’s mumbling.

“No, you don’t refer to any woman over the age of sixteen as a girl. Women, not girl or in your vernacular dames, chicks, or anything like that. Keep it safe.” 

Scratching the back of his neck, Steve nods and re-asks the question, “So Pepper is your -.” He stops because ‘your woman’ must sound as extremely wrong in his brain as it does in Tony’s. He opens his mouth as if he’s found the solution, but closes it, and gives up. 

Tony takes pity on him. “Pepper and I, yes, we are or were or maybe could be a thing.”

Steve looks to the pipes in the ceiling then back at Tony. There’s a glimmer over his features as if he’s laughing at Tony, but then he realizes Rogers is laughing at himself. “Okay, that’s about as clear as anything I hear these days.”

Tony hits the remote on the key chain and the back of the SUV lifts open. “Pepper needs to think things over. It’s been rough, since the battle.” Shades and dark nightmares shift and curl about him, but he turns away from his own fears, his own hauntings of those hours in battle, those moments of death. “She – I – we needed some time.”

Rogers steps forward and chucks his duffle in the back of the vehicle, and then slips his shoulders out of the backpack which holds the shield. “I can understand that.”

“It isn’t the same for Pepper,” Tony says and he doesn’t know why he feels like he has to make excuses. “She didn’t sign up for this. She didn’t expect that all those years ago when she was hired that she’d be watching me carry a nuke into the vortex of hell.”

“No, I understand. She isn’t a soldier.” Rogers still hasn’t put the shield in the bed of the SUV.

“Damn right, she isn’t like your Peggy, she isn’t battle trained.”

Something crosses Rogers face. It is fast and fleeting and hurts like sharp icicles to the skin on a dry cold winter day. Tony blinks the feeling away as Rogers answers, “She wasn’t my Peggy.”

“Ha,” Tony says as he leans against the back of the Mercedes. “Right, all the torrid love scenes were made up.”

“Torrid, love? What?” Rogers nearly drops the bag with the shield before he remembers himself. Tony grabs for it and slides it into the bed, being careful because he knows he should be sensitive – at least that’s what Pepper is always telling him. “We never- I never.”

“What?” Tony stops when he hears the ‘I never.’

Rogers licks his lips once and fidgets about, without the shield in his hands he has nothing to do so he shoves them in the pockets of his bomber jacket. “Me and Peggy. She wasn’t that kind of gal. We just had the one kiss, right before I went down.”

Tony stares at him, really studies him. There’s a heated flush to his skin, and a bit of wetness to his eyes. Yet a frantic almost pleading expression crosses his face. “So you mean you and Peggy never did the nasty?”

“What?” He looks like he’s about to split an artery now and Tony needs to wrap this up, because he could get very cruel and vicious and he’s trying to be better, to prove to himself so that he can be better for Pepper, for them, for everything.

“The movies always implied you were a little more than best buds.” 

Looking away, Rogers murmurs. “We never even danced.” There’s something horrid about his voice as it is swallowed by the emotion eating away at him. 

“Yeah, kind of knew that one,” Tony says in a quiet reply. Everyone knows the legend of Captain America and his flight into the ocean. Shit, at one time, Tony could recite the Captain’s last words verbatim. It was legend, is legend. After a moment’s pause of awkward silence where Rogers doesn’t look at him and Tony moves the stuff around in the back of the vehicle, he finally says, “Are you ready to hit the road.”

“Yeah, sure. I think so,” Rogers heads to the passenger door as Tony takes the driver’s seat. Happy won’t be chauffeuring since he’s leaving today to help out Pepper in Malibu, plus part of this little adventure is to get out of Dodge and get away from everything that Tony Stark actually is.

Including Iron Man.

He swallows down his fear as he thinks about the fact he’s leaving his suitcase behind. He has to see if he can be just Tony again, he has to understand who Tony is. He vowed to Pepper he would try. He promised Pepper he was more than Iron Man. He has to see if he told her the truth. She hadn’t asked him to abandon Iron Man, but he knew, he understood what love asked for without words. 

They leave the city without a final word of goodbye.

*oOo*  
Rogers never quizzes Tony about their destination. He sits quietly in the passenger seat with his hands folded in his lap, staring out the window. He cringes only once when Tony turns the music up, but he doesn’t complain. It flirts in the air, his disapproval, and Tony wonders why he doesn’t say anything.

He presses the button on the steering wheel to turn the sound down and says, “You like the music?”

Rogers glances at him, frowns, and then turns back to the passing scenery. He only murmurs, “Not particularly.”

“And you, of all people, are just going to sit there and listen to it?” Tony snaps.

“It is your car, and I am here on your dime, so I figured I’d be respectful to my host.” All the words come out polite and perfect but with an underlying tension that’s fine tuned, sharp like a razors edge. 

He quirks an eyebrow. Captain America can be passive aggressive. He’s found a new appreciation for Steve Rogers. “Well, as your host, I’m telling you to go ahead and play around with the channels. I have a ton of playlists. Don’t know if there’s any old fogy music programmed in there. Happy or JARVIS usually take care of that shit for me.”

“Thanks, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not.” Rogers shifts in his seat as if the belt is cutting too hard against him. 

Watching the road is a clear disadvantage to this conversation. Tony decides it might be a good time for gas and munchies. Mainly, he’d like to have something to crunch on while driving, but at the same time he needs Rogers to loosen up a bit. He takes the exit and finds a small diner slash gas station. 

“You want something to eat? Maybe munchies?”

“Munchies?” Rogers says as Tony hops out of the SUV. He leans against the frame waiting for Rogers answer. 

“You know, it’s a lot like talking to Rain Man with you, thank god we’ll be there by tonight. I could never take a road trip with you.”

“Imagine that, it’s hard for you to talk to _me_. Must be horrible for you.” Rogers digs out his phone and starts playing with it. As he fingers the screen, Tony snickers. He’s impressed that the good Captain navigates a smartphone in the first place. Tony goes to the little convenience store inside the diner as the gas is pumped and buys a shit load of crap to eat and Yoohoo to drink. He’ll leave the hard liquor for tonight. 

He dumps his gains on the dashboard after he finishes pumping the gas. He stores the Yoohoo in the cooler in the backseat. As he attaches his seatbelt, he says, “Do you know how to pump gas?”

“Yes.”

“Next time you do it, I am not your fucking servant, you know.”

He furrows his brows at Tony again and that little crease at the top of the bridge of his nose appears. For some reason, Tony wants to touch it, soothe it away. “Okay.”

He shoves the bags of goodies around and asks, “What’s your poison?”

“Poison?”

“What do you want to eat?” 

Rogers peers at the assortment and says, “Thor told me Poptarts are really good. Did you get any Poptarts?”

“Christ.”

“What? You asked what I’d like.”

Tony thinks that right about now would be as good a great time to dole out some sarcastic remarks, but bites them back and slides a bag of Cheetos over to the fool. “Here, eat these and don’t get the powdered cheese all over my seat.”

Ripping the bag open, Rogers mumbles something about powdered cheese and how exactly do they get that out of a cow, but he snickers at the same time he’s saying it like it is some kind of inside joke. He peers in the bag as Tony pulls out into traffic and finds his way back to what they call a highway around here but is really just a two lane road passing dairy farms along the way. 

They pass about fifteen minutes in radio silence as Tony listens to the constant munching of the good Captain. He looks over just in time to see Rogers stick his whole index finger in his mouth and suck it clean. Captain America is so engrossed in his task, he doesn’t notice Tony staring, he doesn’t get that Tony is completely and utterly ignoring the road and their safety. He doesn’t know that Tony’s about to swallow his own tongue just for a taste of that.

Hissing, Tony curses under his breath. “I am god damned going to fucking hell.” 

Squinting, Rogers says, “What’s that?” 

Tony shakes his head and looks at the road, telling himself to concentrate, just watch the damned road for once. 

“Do you want some?” Rogers offers the bag to Tony and, all he can think is, that he just had his licked up hand in there, that hand that was in his mouth, the lips wrapped around that finger. “Um, no, not a big fan of Cheetos.”

“Then why did you buy them?”

“Because I can. I can buy everything and anything. I can buy things I fucking hate. That’s how freaking rich I am,” Tony snarls at him.

“Oh, yeah, that’s a good reason,” Rogers says but turns back to the scenery as they drive deeper into the wilds of New York state. 

Silence with the underlying road noise becomes their companion. Tony considers turning the deafening music back on but Rogers has the bag of snacks leaning against his leg and his hands folded and crushed between his legs. Even he can read how closed off the guy is.

“No music then? JARVIS could help you.”

Rogers’ face shifts between confused and lost to sad in just seconds. “No, I really, I don’t. I’m not a big fan of music anymore.”

“Come on, you might not like all the metal or raw stuff that’s out there today, but what about the old crooners. There’s got to be something, JARVIS?” Before Tony can finish his sentence, before Tony reaches out to press the touch screen on the computer panel in the middle of the dash, Rogers halts him. 

His hand stays Tony’s and he says, “I don’t want to listen to anything. Please.”

“But you might like-.”

“I don’t want to hear stuff from back then, okay?”

It hits Tony like an arrow launched from Hawkeye’s bow. _Ghosts from the past, an untouchable, lost past_ . “Okay, sure. That’s fine.”

Rogers takes a moment, as if he’s not really breathing, as if the air in the car has suddenly run out and he’s struggling to pull in just one inhalation. He lets go of the breath he’s holding and releases Tony’s hand. “Thanks.”

Tony eases his gaze back to the road, all the while knowing that Rogers avoids anything from his own time, anything at all because of the fear. The fear is like a cold knife, a dagger drawn into his heart from the ice that once entombed him. Tony knows fear, he knows terror, but he wonders how it would be to be completely and finally trapped. He’d found his way to freedom, sure the pain and humiliation of those months in the cave still followed him everywhere, still hunted him like a predator after his wounded prey. Yet, he was able to return to some semblance of his home, of his own comfort. The people. The places.

Rogers can do none of that. He’s more than trapped, his imprisoned in the present – a present which is not his own. After a few moments, Tony coughs and tries again. “You’ll like this place, I think. It’s artsy. You like art, right?”

“Yeah, yeah I do. I used to, sometimes, draw, illustrate. A bit.” 

“Do anything now?”

He waves it off as if it is nonsense. “Not really a thing, you know. More important stuff happening.”

“But happening to you?”

Rogers chuckles a bit. “You have that right. Not much happens to me anymore, except the fact that I can’t go to the latrine without five SHIELD agents following me there.” He peers over his shoulder and says, “How’d you make sure they aren’t following us?”

“I have my ways.” Tony does not want to get into that fact right now. He doesn’t want to listen to the voices in his head, because, if he faces facts those voices always get him into some insane amount of trouble. He needs to confess to Rogers at some point though; he needs to state that Fury assigned him Captain America sitting duty. “Anyhow, this place is called Chautauqua.” 

“Never heard of it.”

“Pepper found it. Upstate. It’s a little place with an artsy institute. Founded back in the late 1800s or some shit. Apparently, I’ve invested a ton of money up there. Have a house and everything on the lake.”

“Lake?”

“Lake Chautauqua or Erie or somewhere, like who the hell wants to go there?” He shakes himself. He’s still surprised this place came to mind when Fury initiated operation Watch America. “I think I might have been up here a few times, not sure.”

“You’re not sure whether or not you’ve actually been someplace?” Rogers stares at him with wide eyes the color of the sea and an opened mouth. Tony reaches over and gently lifts his chin to close his jaw. 

“Don’t be surprised, Gramps. I’ve gone on months long drunken binges where I’ve lost the vast majority of the time.” He turns back to the road. “JARVIS, how we doing on time.”

“You should arrive approximately at eight o-five p.m., sir.”

Rogers jumps and whips about to look in the backseat. 

“Don’t get your panties in a twist. That’s my A.I.”

“Oh good, because it just sounded like a disembodied voice to me and A.I. makes all the sense in the world.” Rogers replies.

“Artificial Intelligence,” Tony rolls his eyes. “It is like being with Rain Man.”

Leaning back and staring up at the ceiling of the SUV, Rogers chews on more Cheetos and says through mouthfuls, “Modern life is exhausting.”

“You’re telling me.” Tony flinches, physically flinches, when Rogers pulls -the sticking his fingers in his mouth again -to lick off the fake cheese. He doesn’t react to Tony and continues his assault of his fingers.

“This powdered cheese stuff is good, though.” 

“If you think that is good, you should taste high fructose corn syrup.”

Rogers’ face actually lights up. “Do we have any of that?”

Tony bends over the seat and yanks out one of the Yoohoo chocolate milk-like drinks from the cooler in the back. “Knock yourself out.”

“Oh chocolate milk,” Rogers smiles.

“Or what passes as chocolate milk these days.” As he drives the silence isn’t oppressive but sings with a lighter air as he frequently checks on Captain America – his fascination with the long crunchy cheese curls and the fake chocolate milk.

*oOo*  
They roll into the driveway up to his house on the lake at nine thirty. The trip had been lengthen by a longer than expected stop at a diner along the way. Tony’s not for stopping at roadside diners, but Rogers liked it, and he woofed down probably about half of their food stocks. The old lady at the counter cooed at him, which was cute in a way but also quite annoying. When Rogers brought out his credit card to pay for the entire meal, Tony told him to put it away.

Rogers had only smiled and said, “Are you sure, it’s on Fury.” He held the card up with two fingers.

“Oh, in that case, be my guest.” Tony winked at him and they’d followed it up by filling up the tank on Fury as well.

He’d always held this pristine image of Captain America in his head, but to think the little bugger was actually fairly passive aggressive warmed the cockles of Tony’s heart. 

When they pull into the garage, the lights come on automatically and JARVIS welcomes him home. He has only Pepper to thank that even at this remote site, he has access to everything that’s important to him. Something hollow and bright and cold washes over him; he does her no justice. He takes her for granted. He huffs out a sigh and Rogers looks at him questioningly.

“Tired,” he says as an excuse. Luckily, Rogers doesn’t know him well enough to recognize the slight edge to his voice that surely would have given him away to either Pepper or Rodney. He parks the car in a space that has enough room for four cars. There’s a motorcycle in one of the spaces and a jet ski in another. Too bad it isn’t summer, they could do some damage on the lake.

Climbing out of the vehicle, Rogers follows him and they unloaded in only one trip. Neither of them over packed, but he wonders if he under packed, and then remembers he doesn’t have the suit and a sweat flushes over his skin. It’s the middle of February so it just serves to chill him and he crosses the space to the door.

He keys in his code and the mechanism unlocks. “I’ve configure it so that you can have access.” He leads the way through what looks to be fully a stocked pantry and mudroom. He’s fairly certain JARVIS or someone contacted the management company which maintains the place and set a list of things needed and freshened it up for occupancy.

As they enter into the kitchen, Rogers whistles and stares kind of gap jawed again around the expansive space. The tiled floor, the glass tiled backsplash with the granite counter tops all reflect nicely with the stainless steel appliances. The motif is a subdued red with hits of gold and white. It shouldn’t work in a kitchen, but it does and Tony instantly decides this is his favorite room. He’ll have to ask JARVIS when the last update to the house was considering the general feel of it and colors make him happy. 

He flicks on some lights that lead to a large living room area that has an expanse of sliding doors and floor to ceiling windows along the side to the gigantic deck. The view of the lake is blackened by the night. Above the stone fireplace sits a large flat screen television facing a deep chocolate brown sectional. The space doesn’t feel as much Tony as it does homey, and he decides he still likes it, he likes it very much.

“I think the kitchen is bigger than my whole apartment,” Rogers says and clings to the bag with his shield a little tighter. 

It occurs to Tony that Rogers doesn’t have much experience or place in a world filled with the rich and famous. He went from urchin to army to experiment to soldier to ice in a fairly short time span. “Well that is just a travesty. You are a national treasure and you shouldn’t be living in a cardboard box in a shady section of New York.”

“I live in Brooklyn and I rent what I can afford.”

Tony doesn’t say – which isn’t much – but the words hang like rotten fruit. He shuffles it off and waves Rogers forward to the back hallway. He vaguely remembers the stairwell down will bring him to a lower level with a workshop and access to the lake. The hallway goes to the bedrooms. There aren’t a lot of rooms in this house, just large ones. He points to the door as they pass it. “That’s just the general bathroom. There’s a gym downstairs, if you want to use it. Over there, is one of three guest rooms. You’re welcome to pick. I have the only room upstairs.”

“Okay, thanks.” Rogers nods and heads off to the closest guest room.

“You’re not going to check each one out?”

He lifts up his shoulder and smiles in that adorably goofy way and says, “I’m not goldilocks. I don’t have to try out the beds; I can just about sleep anywhere. You learn to when you’re out on a mission.”

Tony feels the press of disgust on his chest. “Well, the point is you don’t have to. That room, the one you’re presently taking happens to be the craptastic room since it has a great view of the driveway.” He tugs on Rogers’ wrist and drags him to the bedroom to the right of the hallway. “Take this one. From what I remember, it has a legendary view.”

“It’s not-.”

Tony rubs his temple and glares at him. “Really? Who else needs the room, Rogers? Who? Just take it and stop trying to impress everyone, because the only thing you’re impressing on me is that you are a spangled pain in my ass.”

The good Captain holds back his reply and Tony can nearly watch as he counts out the beads on his Rosary beads and says a few Hail Marys along the way. He breathes in through his nose and lets it out through his mouth, then nods, “Okay, thanks. Don’t mind if I do.” He stalks off to the room.

“Hey, you want a snack, a drink, or something,” Tony calls because he just cannot leave it alone.

Stopping, Rogers considers him and then the fight drains away. “Nah, I’m gonna call it a night.”

Tony doesn’t remark that it isn’t even ten yet, but waves to him and finds his way to the stairs. By the time he makes the landing, memories of the place flood and he’s recalling parties and other activities. He’s not sure when and how they happened, he thinks probably before Iron Man. He doesn’t routinely throw parties in his residences anymore, too dangerous, too invasive.

The master bedroom is really a suite and takes up the entire second floor of the house. Along the lakeside, the windows stretch the entire length of the room. A vaulted ceiling with open beams keeps the look of a lodge but at the same time there’s interlacing of steel girders, duct work, and the rough feel of factory as gears and pipes line the walls. He’s sure Pepper or someone designed it to his liking and when he walks into the bathroom he recognizes that it’s been completely remodeled and updated with touches that remind him of Iron Man. He knows it wasn’t this way before, when he had the parties and the women and some men up here. He likes the way the motif and style of the kitchen is mirrored in the bathroom, the gold and red glitter in the lavish bath with its walk in shower with both multiple and detachable shower heads. He won’t shower tonight, he’s bone tired but at the same time too hyper aware to sleep. It is one of his constant issues.

So he finishes freshening up and decides to throw himself on the bed, perhaps watch a little porn or something. He leaves his jeans open and tows his shirt over his head. Rolling his shoulders, he snatches the remote from the side table and points it at the television which seems to be precariously perched above the sliding glass doors to the upper level balcony. 

He is about to call for JARVIS to bring up his favorites when, as he’s switching through channels, he happens upon a documentary on, of all things, Captain America. 

“Huh,” he says and his hand is still perched in the air with the remote pointed at the television. There’s no footage of Rogers in boot camp, only old photos of the camp itself. There are possibly two or three actual photos of Rogers before Rebirth. Tony frowns a bit at the look, the sickly bend of the shoulders, and the thin rail of a man he had been. There are a number of stills from the day Rogers underwent Project Rebirth and as the narrator continues, Tony drops his hand on the bed and watches transfixed. 

There’s Steve – thin and trusting and frightened.

There’s Erskine – knowing and worthy and idealistic.

There’s Howard – young and brash and arrogant.

All of them, there, as a moment in time. Then the photo changes to the moment Steve stepped out of the coffin like thing, the place where the transformation took place. Tony detects the slightest hint of pain in his features, but only because he’s seen the Captain in pain before. It aches in the coiled bundle of nerves down deep. 

The narration jumps ahead as they skim over the useless months Steve spent as a showgirl. The documentary works its way forward through the Howling Commandos and the raids. By the time, they’ve shown the news reels; Tony has his hand down his pant, lightly but absently stroking himself. He’s hard, but only half way there.

He tries to talk himself out of jerking off to a documentary about Captain America. Shit, he’d done that enough in his faded youth. He doesn’t need to do it again when Captain America is fucking right in the same house and, if he thinks about it, probably right underneath him. This just sets off a fire in his belly he can’t deny. The idea of Steve – not Rogers – just a few meters away, just so near heats a kind of rebellion in the pit of his belly and he hisses out a breath.

He massages the area above his tangle of hair; it stokes the fire and he’s harder now, as the images of Steve Rogers and Captain America play above him. He tugs down his pant and boxers to free his heavy dick, rasping out air that he hadn’t realized he’d held. Hot semen leaks from the tip and he rolls it around the head to ease the friction. He doesn’t need to see the images on the television anymore. He’s deep into memory, of today, of months ago. 

The rage of their argument in the lab of the Helicarrier swims through him pushing him forward. The obstinate glower of Captain America as he spouted his discontent, as he challenged Tony. 

_Put on the suit_

He yanks at his cock and feels the tension twist in the denseness of his groin. 

_Put on the suit_

God, he wants to punish that fucking mouth, that deliciously luscious mouth.

_Put on the suit_

It rings through his head as he clamps down on his dick, as he strokes and runs the pre-come down the length. He feels the hot blood vessel pump and thicken as he toys a little more, as he draws it out. The images on the television flash and brighten his vision. It shows dates and times and marks the moment of Captain America’s final act. It bleeds from black and white photos to streaming film of New York as the good Captain fulfilled his duty again. 

He can’t hear the narrator anymore, he can’t see anything, but recall the eyes, the blue eyes and the rise and fall of the shoulders, the taper of the waist. He wants and what Tony Stark wants, Tony Stark gets. He pulls and tugs at a punishing rate now, he wants those lips around him, and he wants those legs wrapped about him. He wants to fuck Captain America.

He comes with a mangled yell and spatters all over his hand and belly. The warmth puddles there, and he pants. It does nothing for his nerves. He wants him all the more.

“Shit,” he murmurs to no one. He has no control, he needs to learn control. Everyone’s always told him that, even Howard. He needs to learn how to control himself, how to control his needs and wants. The dance of the documentary continues and he lazily looks up at it to see a photograph of Steve from before Project Rebirth. 

He wants him all the more. He closes his eyes and sighs.

CHAPTER 2  
When he shuffles downstairs at o dark thirty and sees the light on in the kitchen, Tony pauses. He hears the quiet clink of spoon against cup and the slide of a chair or stool across the tile. He considers leaving, but, hell, it is his house. If he’s going to stay on this little get away with Rogers – Christ, he just masturbated to images of the guy - he should at least give him the common courtesy of thinking about him by his first name. 

He strides into the kitchen. Rogers – no, Steve, Steve, Steve is there; his whole massive body bent over a mug that looks too small for his hands. He shoulders hunch and it looks like he’s sheltering the cup. His eyes are weary and worn and, for the first time, he looks his age. Too old to be so young.

“Hey,” Tony says by way of greeting. 

Steve raises his hand and that’s it for a how do you do today. He goes back to staring at the black coffee in front of him. Tony notices Steve used the old coffee pot and not the new Keurig the management company must have just recently installed in the kitchen. He chooses to use it, rather than drink any of the pot already brew. He likes the Keurig, he likes choice.

He selects an Italian Roast and sets it up. It takes too long and he briefly thinks he might want to dismantle the thing and see if he can get it to make a cup of coffee in thirty seconds flat. This gives him a little thrill of a smile. It finishes and he abandons the thought. Instead, he joins Steve at the breakfast bar off the massive kitchen island.

“Sleep?”

“Not so much,” Steve says and rubs at his eyes. He picks up the mug and it says something about the arts on it. He sips it and says, “After all that time asleep, you’d think I’d be a pro at it by now.”

“There’s a gym downstairs.”

“Might take you up on it, but I think I’ll go for a run today.” Steve places the cup down and spins it around to look at the wild paint brush marks across the surface of it. 

“It’s gonna be like way below freezing today, you know.” He suddenly misses Malibu and wants to get back to California. What the hell was he thinking? He’s not an Easterner. He should be home, in the warm sun, racing and loving. When he thinks the last, his eyes drift to Steve.

“Once I get started, it shouldn’t bother me.” Steve sits up and his broad muscles of his back under his t-shirt stretch and ripple. “Need to do something, need to relax.”

“Fury told me,” Tony says and surprises even himself by this little bit of confession. He muffles his mouth by resting his chin in his upturned hand and places his fingers over his own lips. 

“Told you?”

“You torture innocent punching bags, you don’t sleep. You stay at SHIELD headquarters during all hours, roaming the halls, hanging out with security.”

“Everyone’s watching, even you,” Steve whispers.

“Yeah, maybe, but it’s kind of hard not to watch. You know, you’re kind of a legend.” He thinks of his hand wrapped tight, tense around himself and he’s half hard in his sweats again. 

Steve hangs his head and closes his eyes. When he looks back up at Tony, he says, “I’m just a legend, nothing else. You know, Fury let me go to Arlington. I saw all those graves, all those markers.” His voice drops and there’s something raw and unforgiving in his expression. “I’m just a story, those men died.”

“Um, you kinda did too, you know.”

“Kinda dead isn’t dead, Tony.”

“Yeah, like sorta pregnant.” 

Steve cocks an eyebrow at him and smirks, “I’m not exactly sure what that’s supposed to mean.”

“Nobody does, so don’t feel bad about it.” 

Bowing his head, Steve laughs a bit and then glances up at Tony. The expression, that lost weariness, has faded to something warmer and friendly. Tony thinks he likes it a little too much. He thinks he might have to curse and swear and build something today in order to get the good Captain out of his thoughts. Before he says anything else or does anything too stupid, Steve is up and searching through the cupboards. He grabs a box of cereal and opens the refrigerator to pull out the milk. With a bowl snagged from another cupboard, he places it all on the island and pours a heaping serving before he douses it with milk. 

“You want a little cereal with that milk?” Tony asks.

A sheepish smile answers him. “Sorry, didn’t have a lot of real milk in my day. No money to go around and then being stuck in an orphanage, plus the war. Well, you get used to the powdered stuff.”

Tony doesn’t partake in drinking milk often, but even he blanches at that little fact.

“Yeah, powdered cheese wasn’t my first pony show, you know. If you think powdered milk is awful, you should try French fries made with powdered potatoes.” He shoves a soup spoonful of the cereal in his mouth and crunches down on it delightfully.

“I don’t even know how that works.” 

“Nobody does and no one really wants to know. They use them on ships.” Steve raises a shoulder. “Can’t deep fry anything on the ship, so they make the fries with powder. Tastes a little like clay.”

“Eat a lot of clay in your day?” Tony sips his coffee, it is harsh and dark and thick.

“Did some art, gets all over, bound to get it in your mouth every now and then.” Steve goes in for another mouthful and Tony’s mesmerized at what an eating machine Captain America really is. He’s heard about the metabolism, how Rogers burns through calories like fire eats oxygen. He’s just never seen anything quite so astounding and riveting. To prove Tony’s unspoken point, Steve finishes off the cereal and then asks, “You want some breakfast, I’m going to make eggs. I saw some in the icebox.”

“Refrigerator, and no, not a morning person. Usually just drink my breakfast.”

Steve considers him and Tony braces himself for the inevitable come back, the rebuke. It doesn’t come. Instead, Steve sets about fixing scrambled eggs and toast. He makes eight pieces of toast and cracks the same number of eggs. He finds his way around the kitchen a little haltingly, but fairly efficiently which is impressive and somewhat endearing. When he finishes, he dishes out most of the eggs into one plate, and six of the pieces of toast. He fills a second plate with the remaining eggs and two buttered slices of toast. He places it in front of Tony and asks, “Do you want anything else?”

Tony opens his hands and says, “I didn’t want this.”

“Eat.”

“No.”

“We’re not having this conversation. I’ve known people like you, Tony. Work all the time, so fascinated by the thrill of discovery you forget who you are, what’s important.” Steve digs into his serving. “Eat.”

Even as he commands Tony to feed himself, he knows who Steve is talking about – of course he does – who else would be the one person Steve would know who would be so involved with his work, so fanatical about the possibilities of discovery, of knowing more, inventing more that he just might forget about the mundane, every day needs of life, the requirements of living. He stares at the eggs and they turn into his nightmares, the shades of everything that terrifies him, the dark pit in his belly waiting to turn him into his father.

He pushes the plate away and starts to leave, before he goes he says, “Don’t treat me like him. I’m not him.”

“No, you’re smarter.” Steve states but his eyes are fierce as if he’s protective of something. Tony cannot begin to fathom what it is. 

This stops him, pulls him back like the gravitational pull of a black hole. He’s asking to be shredded and pulled a part by this enigma of Captain America. He sits and shovels the food into his mouth, all the time glaring at the good Captain and fighting off the need to either smack him one or kiss him. 

He isn’t sure which has the upper hand and denies which he hopes would win.

*oOo*  
He finds his way to the basement and scours through the workshop, trying to get his bearings. He hasn’t really operated in the space before, not for any length of time and not recently. The first thing he notices when he unlocks the door to the space – other than the quaint welcome JARVIS gives him as he walks through the threshold – is the silver suitcase atop the center console. He thinks he feels a stuttering of his heart and grasps the arc reactor just to ensure it is still there, still functioning, and all is well. It is, of course, and the suitcase isn’t a mirage or an object of his imagination. 

He queries JARVIS anyway. “JARVIS, am I drunk?”

“You do not appear to be, sir. All biological scans show that your blood alcohol level is at 0.003.”

“Wow, I’ll have to do something about that soon, might go into detox if I don’t.” Tony walks to the console and touches the case, runs his hands along the contours. “JARVIS, tell me that I’m imagining the suitcase on the console.”

“If you want me to I will, though I am confused by the purpose of such a deception.”

“Okay, so that means my suit is here.”

“It would seem that would be the most logical conclusion, sir.”

“How exactly did it get here?”

“Ms. Potts had it delivered here yesterday.” 

Tony smiles but then the thought droops and falls. Who the hell was in possession of the suit without his permission? Has Pepper lost her mind? What the hell is she playing at? Before another rational thought can form in his brain, before he can inquire any further information from JARVIS, he has his phone out and is connected to Pepper in seconds.

“My suit? Who touched my suit?”

“Tony?” Her voice sounds harried and he should really pay attention to what her schedule is but right now, he couldn’t give a damn. 

“Someone touched my suit.” 

“This isn’t a national emergency, Tony.” He can hear the click of her heels in the background. She must be walking on marble floors or tile or something. “I’m a little busy with your company right now.”

“Who brought the suit to the house in Chautauqua?”

“Rhodey did it as a favor to me.”

“You let him touch my stuff,” Tony chokes out.

“He always touches your stuff.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you sleeping with him?”

“Jesus, Tony, no.”

“Do you want to sleep with him, because that would be totally hot.”

“I am not having this conversation.”

“Is that you are not having this conversation now, and you might consider the idea of sleeping with him. Or, is it that you aren’t having the conversation ever and would never consider sleeping with him because then I would have to ask why not?” Tony examines the locking mechanism on the case. It looks good.

“I’m not answering that.”

“Predictable, Pepp, predictable.”

The clicking of the heels has stopped and she replies, “And you’re not?”

“Never.”

“Right, you were having the cold sweats over leaving the suit behind, weren’t you? Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Stop lying.”

“You’re a hard one to please, you know that don’t you?” He says as he sinks into the chair at the console. He might be able to work on modifications to the mobile suit now. This is good, this is bright. 

“I’m the hard one,” Peppers says, sighs, and then adds, “What do you need, Tony, I have a meeting with the Subcommittee on the Environment today at the Senate.”

“Always throwing names around.”

“This was your job; I’m here because you refused to meet with them.”

“And you do it so well.”

“Is that a compliment, because it sounded a little too sarcastic to be a compliment?”

“No sarcasm, Pepp,” he says and he’s weary and tired. “You do everything so well.” 

There’s a pause on the other end of the line and then she says, “Don’t get like this, Tony.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want me to come back.”

“We work well together.”

She says so gently it rips little holes in his chest. “I work well for you, Tony. We know that. But I can’t-.”

He bows his head and says, “I know, I don’t work well for you.”

“That’s doesn’t sound nice,” she says and sorrow laces her voice. “Tell me, you’re okay there?”

“I’m okay.”

“Tony, please.”

“Nothing to worry about, have the savior of the world here with me, you know.” 

“You’re the savior of the world, Tony.”

“You always say the nicest things,” Tony says and to lighten the tone of the conversation he continues, “I think I’m going to ditch this place, go back to Malibu.”

“I’m in D.C., today.”

“That’s okay; I’ll get there for the weekend. Can we have the weekend?”

Silence, then a soft puff of air from the other side of the line. He convinces himself that it isn’t her feeling resentful or relenting, but that she wants to stop fighting herself and will give him a second or third or fourth or whatever the hell chance it is. “Okay, we can talk.”

“That sounds good. I’ll bring you strawberries.”

“Christ, Tony,” she says with a laugh.

Stupidly, because Tony doesn’t know how to stop defeating himself he says, “I jerked off last night.”

“God, Tony, I do not need to hear that while I’m on the way to a Senator’s office. For God’s sake.”

“Inappropriate?”

“Think about it. I’m hanging up.” 

“Love you.”

“Take care of yourself, Tony.” She disconnects and he thinks at least he didn’t confess what he was watching as he played whack-a-mole. He considers that a win.

To distract himself, he delves into the mobile suit and has JARVIS bring up all the plans on the readouts. He has multiple screens open and asks JARVIS to analyze the articulation of the mobile suit’s joints in comparison to several other versions of the suit. While he’s working on that he confirms the suitcase hasn’t been open, so he’s fairly confident no one actually examined it physically while it was in transit. Of course, that does not exclude other means to scan, review, and study it. He tries not to think about that and has to trust in his friend. 

Tony is rarely a trusting man anymore.

“Explode the joint, JARVIS, the extension looks compromised.” He must sit and study it for hours because the next thing JARVIS interrupts him.

“Sir, Captain Rogers is requesting entrance into the workshop.”

“Oh, sure, why not? Let Capsicle in.”

He hears the door swing open but doesn’t turn to greet his guest. Instead, he flicks through a few iterations of the elbow joint and compares these to 4D models of human anatomy as well as the latest and greatest orthopedic devices for amputees. 

When he turns to look at Steve, the good Captain has that furrow between his brows again, his arms crossed over his chest, and there’s a slight sheen on his skin. He frowns and asks, “Where you’ve been?”

“Took a run around the lake.”

“You ran all the way around Lake Erie? Seriously, what did you do jump over the Falls?”

Both of Steve’s eyebrows quirk upward and he smiles as if Tony is pulling his leg (which he is not, but to save face he feigns he is). “It isn’t Lake Erie, Tony. Lake Chautauqua.”

“Still,” Tony says and pulls up data on said lake. “Shit, that’s like 41 miles of shore.”

“Something like that. I’m beat.”

“Jesus, I didn’t expect you to try and do all the sightseeing in one day.”

“It’s nice, pretty. Reminds me of some of the places we camped out during our raids.” Steve leans against an empty bench. 

Tony notices he’s not wearing anything other than sweats, a hoodie, and his running shoes. “You go out in that?”

“After I loosened up a little, yeah.”

“You’re gonna catch pneumonia.”

Steve shakes his head and raises a single brow. “Doesn’t work that way anymore. Don’t catch anything, anymore.”

“Terrestrial, right? You could theoretically catch something from Asgard or the other realms?” Tony spins his chair around to focus his full attention on the Captain.

He shrugs. “I guess. I really don’t know. But I just came down here to see if you wanted to go into the little town here. I’m half-starved and I wanted to get something to eat.”

Tony concludes that being half-starved is really being starved to death for someone with a hyped up metabolism who just ran a marathon and a half in a little under (he looks at the clock on the computer screen) three hours. “What do you have in mind?”

“I thought we could wander around, you know, get the feel of the place. Get comfortable.”

Tony taps the pen he’s picked up. He wonders where the pen came from incidentally since he can’t recall the last time he’s used one. Who uses pens anymore? Oh yeah, Gramps.

“I guess, sure, that’d be good.” He has no idea why he’s agreeing to walk around an antiquated little town square and look at little shops and eateries. He considers whether or not he might have picked up some alien bug at some time. 

“I have to shower but meet you in ten?”

“Okay?” Tony says and isn’t sure he’s agreeing or asking a question. Either Steve decides to ignore the unspoken part of his reply or he just didn’t catch it. He nods and leaves the workshop. Tony stares after him, a little off kilter from the flush and sheen of Steve’s skin after the lengthy run. There’s an equal warmth flooding his skin and stiffening in his jeans. He scowls. He has got to get over this crap. 

He needs to leave for Malibu, put some distance between the unattainable and himself. He doesn’t bother closing anything down, he exits with specific security instructions for JARVIS and heads up the stairs approximately ten minutes later than he’s supposed to be there. He discovers Steve waiting in the kitchen with his hand shoved in a box of Cheerios.

“Do you eat all the time?”

“I just ran for nearly three hours before which I worked out in your gym for a few hours, I’m hungry.” He puts the box on the counter and pulls out his wallet. “I can pay my way.”

“I do not want Captain America’s money. Thank you but, no.” Tony waves him off. “I think that’s kind of a sin or something.”

Steve only offers him a frustrated roll of the eyes and heads to the door to the mudroom and garage. Tony trails after him after scooping up the keys from the counter. He tosses them to Steve after calling, “Heads up.” One handed and, without much sight on the keys, Steve grabs them out of the air. “Show off.”

Steve grins and hops in the vehicle. They end up in Jamestown whose one claim to fame is the birth place of Lucille Ball. Tony jokes several times with a Cuban accent about Lucy but Steve is doing his Rain Man act again, so all his cleverness is falling on deaf ears. Steve picks a small pizza joint that close to a book store and other shops. Tony is freaking hoping he doesn’t have to spend time lost in some treasure trove of Aunt Mae’s doilies. He’ll rip his arc reactor out himself if that happens.

“What are you getting?” Steve asks.

“Hmm?”

“We’re here to eat, what are you getting?”

“Coffee?”

“Tony.”

“Booze, do they have wine?”

“I was talking about food.”

“Wine is made out of grapes,” Tony returns and flips open the menu so that Steve doesn’t turn any redder in the face. He really has to try to get Steve to smile a bit; he makes it his solemn duty, and then completely fucks himself over with stating his intentions. “I’m gonna leave for Malibu.”

“What? When?” Steve looks genuinely hurt, a flash of pain, a kind of loss shifts over his expression. He tries to hide it, but it doesn’t go well. He turns his face in profile to Tony then once he’s gotten his reaction under control, says, “When?”

“The weekend, we have a lot of time.”

“It’s Thursday, Tony.”

“Oh,” Tony replies. Funny, how time always sneaks up on him. He tries to figure out a way to soften the blow. “You don’t really want me here, anyway. You were planning on getting away to process. Remember Capsicle? You needed time away by yourself.”

“Sure, right.” Steve says and then lapses into that big lug silence which he did on the road. 

There is not enough booze in the world to deal with this, Tony decides. The waitress saves him. She’s probably about Tony’s age but she thinks she’s about half that with the shock of purple hair and the tattoo up her right arm. Steve does justice to the best poker face Tony has ever seen. He’s polite and quiet but when he orders he keeps his eyes fixed on her chin. By the time the waitress has taken their order and brought a couple of beers to the table, Steve’s taken out a little book and scribbles in it. “What are you writing?” He has a strange feeling he’s actually stepped into the world of Rain Man and that Steve is scribbling how Tony hurt his feelings in the little book.

Steve turns the book over to look at the cover as if it is the first time he’s seeing it. “Oh, I’m keeping track of things. Things I learn.”

“Didn’t Fury give you a tablet for that? Or your phone, you could write notes in there.” He reaches across the table and snatches the book out of Steve’s hand before he reacts which is a miracle since, hey, Captain America. 

“Tony.”

He pages through it and notes the careful penmanship; it reminds him of his mother’s cursive. He sees the tight handwriting detailing everyday with times and activities. “Shit, you need to loosen up a little.” There isn’t much in the way of variety. A lot of Steve’s time is spent on physical activities. He also has sessions for reading and he captured summaries of what he’s learned. There’s even an entry about what to call ladies – not girls, dames, or chicks. He has a question mark near the entry, and says then what? 

Tony snorts when he sees the orange powdered cheese with four stars next to it. Other than a few doodles of the scenery and people (he’s surprised to see not one or two sketches of himself but five in the book’s margins), the notebook is regimented and orderly. 

“Seriously, dude, think about letting loose once in a while.”

“Give it back, Tony.” Steve opens his hand and waits. He’s being completely rational and nice about it, since he could literally turn Tony into road kill without the need for a heavy vehicle to do the smashing. He hands the book over to Steve.

“You don’t need a book to process, you need down time.”

As Steve leans forward to speak, the waitress approaches the table with two large pizzas, a cheeseburger and fries and a salad. She also brings a vanilla shake. “Anything else?”

“No ma’am. Thank you.”

“Sweet, you’re a keeper.” She smiles and waves as she bops back to the bar. Tony glares after her. 

Steve digs into the pizza, engulfing half of the first pizza before Tony has even taken two bites out of his burger. “That must be tiring.”

“What?”

“Your metabolism.”

“It can be,” Steve says. “But I’m kind of used to being hungry. Only time I wasn’t was when I was in the army before the experiment. Lots of food then.”

“All of it powdered.”

“Hey, we got chocolate on the front line, that’s better than what the home front got.” Steve chews down a big bite. “One of the perks of constant danger.”

“Chocolate verses death, there’s a lesson in there somewhere but one I am not equipment to know.”

“Me neither.” He continues to eat as Tony watches him.

“You were saying?”

“Saying?”

“About the book and processing?”

Steve fiddles with his paper napkin. The pen from the book suddenly appears in his hand and he’s scratch at the napkin while he’s talking. “I can’t let loose. I don’t even know how, not here.” He looks around the restaurant with its fake plastic garland and piped in Italian music. The people must even look strange as if they are from comic books. “If I can control it maybe it won’t control me.”

“Control you?” Tony asks.

“Maybe I’m nuts, but I need to hold the line. I need to make sure I’m not going to lose anything more. If I catalogue it and memorize it, it’ll sink in.”

“Sink in?”

Steve rubs at bit at his chin. “That this isn’t a dream, that this is it. This is what I have.”

“That’s terribly depressing. You are a very depressing person to know.” 

“Geez, thanks, it’s great to know you too, Tony.” Steve drops the pen and focuses his attention on the vanilla shake. He abandons the straw after only one drink and simply picks it up and gulps about half of it. He places it on the table and, for one instant, Tony thinks he might burp, but he swallows down the urge and says, “You know the first week after I woke up they put me in a psyche ward.”

“What? That is nowhere in the official or unofficial files that I’ve searched,” Tony replies. He disgusted on Steve’s part. “Why the hell would they do that?”

“Thought I might off myself,” Steve says and there’s a nearly imperceptible tremor of his hand so he forgoes doodling and starts back on the pizza. He doesn’t lift his gaze to meet Tony’s. “I didn’t think about doing it, of course. It was weird, being in the ward with all of those lost people.” He chuckles but it sounds strained and muted. “Maybe that’s where I belong.” He shakes himself free of the memories and adds, “Then I spent about two weeks being put through every single scientific test they could think of to verify what was already in the file. I thought I’d die from all the blood loss, they took so much of it.”

“They learn anything new?”

Steve smiles then and it is the look of someone whose secret is still safe. “Not a damned thing.”

“Did you just curse?”

“A little.”

“See you can cut loose!” Tony says as if this is a great triumph.

“I could always swear, Tony. I was in the army,” he says. “You know it always surprises me how little people think I know. Most people treat me like I am that porcelain doll. I was in the army.” He leans down and whispers, “During World War two, I killed Nazis and secret agents. I saw my friends, my best friend die. I know how to curse, I know how to swear. I know what it means to need to do that.”

It occurs to Tony that Captain America has overshadowed everything that Steve Rogers was and is; there’s a good probability that even Steve doesn’t recognize himself and if he does, he’s not sure he wants to be who he is anymore, because he might just be a ghost. Maybe part of needing to let go is about finding out who he really is. Tony raises an eyebrow; it intrigues him like any problem would. 

Before Tony can initiate another round of questioning, because hell he wants to dig into the problem, look at it, examine it from all angles, Steve says, “So, are you going out to Malibu to see your gi-. To see Pepper?”

“Um?” Tony’s thrown a bit by the shift in conversation, but he catches up and replies, “I thought I might.”

“Sounds like a good idea. Sounds like fun,” Steve says though his voice echoes none of the sentiment. He sounds morose.

“Don’t be maudlin. You wanted time away and I wasn’t part of your plans.”

“You’re right, you weren’t. I just-.” Steve scans the small hole in the wall restaurant. “I just didn’t have any real plans at all. And when this one popped up.” He leaves it there, like the rest of the sentence is obvious and clear. It would be to anyone with any ability to read freaking crazy people, but Tony is not one of them. “So, it looks good for you and Pepper?”

“It might. I’m not sure. She didn’t sound happy that I wanted to come out and see her, more resigned to it.”

“Oh,” Steve says and wipes his mouth with the paper napkin. He leaves a little smear of ink at the corner of his mouth that Tony wants to wipe away. He restrains himself from the action. “I’m sorry.”

“I think she needs more time, maybe I should give her more time?”

Steve sits back and laughs. It is genuine and light and chimes the air. “Don’t ask me, I never had any luck with the dames and long term relationships, that was Bucky.”

“You know I brought her strawberries once.”

“Sounds nice.”

“She’s deathly allergic to strawberries,” Tony says to which Steve grimaces. “I spend so much time up here.” He taps his forehead. “I don’t spend a lot of time gathering information on other people, because – god – every damned person seems like they’re moving in slow motion. It’s so irritating and exhausting to have to wait for people to catch up. So, I just don’t give a shit, so I just move forward and Pepper said I’m a chaotic force, that I don’t pay attention to people. But the fact of the matter is, is that I can’t because I’m motion sick waiting for people to catch up to me. It’s about control, I have none. You have too much.”

“Mix us together we’d be the perfect fella,” Steve frowns, but it isn’t a painful one just a thoughtful one.

“You done?”

“I think,” Steve nods and balls up the napkin to throw it in the empty plate. Tony’s barely touched his cheeseburger, but thankfully Steve ignores it and throws a few bills on the table as they stand. 

“You know I could get that,” Tony says. 

“You owe me one.”

As they walk out of the restaurant, Tony can only think he owes Steve Rogers more than he will ever know.

 

CHAPTER 3  
After that, they fall into a strange and somewhat muddled routine. Tony ends up calling Pepper to cancel his plans but she interrupts him and saves him the duty of breaking her heart again, when she announces she has to go to Japan for some big business issue.

“This weekend?”

“No choice, unless you want to go?”

“Please, no.”

“I thought so.”

Before he even thinks about it, he says, “Rain check?”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“I always keep my options open.”

She huffs. “An option, Tony, now I’m an option? Who’s the other option?” He keeps his lips tightly clamped and grinds his teeth. Thankfully, she changes the subject with the question, “How’s operation Watch America going?”

“Fury told you?”

“Well, if you’d answer his phone calls once in a while, he might leave me alone. Please answer his phone calls.”

He knows he should promise to do it. One of his goals is to treat her, treat other people with a little respect. He doesn’t, because he’ll be damned if he has to promise to be a good little soldier for Fury and report in. 

Pepper is talking even as he’s planning out his newest strategy to piss off the one eyed wonder. “Are you at least being nice to him?”

“What?”

“Steve, are you being nice to him? You know he’s still adjusting. That isn’t the easiest thing to do. Tell me you aren’t filling his head with garbage.”

“I’m filling his head with garbage.”

She laughs and it twinkles the air. “I have to go, Tony.”

“Really, we haven’t even-.”

“Good-bye.” She disconnects before he can say anything else. He feels cold and empty as he stares at the phone. It takes a long time before he drops it and flops down on the bed in his room. He isn’t sure where Rogers is. 

The chilled feeling he has persists and he considers going down to work on the joint issues he’s been dealing with in the suit. He lies there, allowing inertia to take hold. Though most people don’t believe it, Tony’s efficient in compartmentalizing things. After being held hostage, tortured, operated on with no anesthesia, one thing he learned to do after his escape and subsequent rescue was to shift things and box things in his head. The following years taught him he’d made a good choice from Stane’s betrayal to the palladium poisoning, he needed to cut things into smaller packages so that his emotional brain didn’t succeed in its quest to overtake his intellectual one.

It is the only success he’s had in dealing with the chaos of life, except, of course, for Iron Man. He supposes they all have their ways to cope. Didn’t Pepper call that a coping mechanism? Shit, now he’s turning into one of those psychology people. He doesn’t want to be psycho-analyzed. This spirals him back to Steve and thinking about a week spent in a psyche ward. What psyche ward was it? It must have been one with high security clearance. How many crazy people from high security clearance positions are now confined to a nut house? That, in and of itself, is slightly off center and jarring. At least, Rogers isn’t imprisoned in one of those places anymore. 

Yet, every time he thinks of Steve and his plight, he filters back to the fact the guy cannot go home again. His home no longer exists, and how fucked up is that? He’s amazed at the fact Steve can function, can adapt as well as he has even with his tendency to do a good impression of Rain Man. Is his capacity to modify his expectations part of Steve Rogers or did that also get enhanced and modified with the serum treatment. He thinks of little scrawny Steve, so trusting and incredibly stupid – did they even have informed consents in those days. How desperate to be a good soldier, to do his part had he been to risk everything?

He finds his hand down his pants again and he making long lazily strokes, slipping pre-come down and up again. He becomes more intent as the moment drags on. The stiffness heightens and he jerks up into his calloused hand. He tries to remember where the lube is, but can’t. His needs throw the idea away and he’ll just deal with the slight discomfort created by the friction. He wants the friction, to feel the incredible grind against his hand shudders through him. 

It’s been too long since he’s had a good lay, but it doesn’t matter now. He’s so screwed over because he cannot bring an image of Pepper to his mind, instead he’s thinking of Captain America – but not. No, he has to admit, as he tugs and pulls and punishes himself, he’s thinking of Steve Rogers. He recalls the moment Steve stuck his finger in his mouth and sucked it to lick away the powdered fake cheese. It rolls and tightens in his belly. Another flash and he’s thinking of Steve sitting across from him both sadden and happy at the same time. How does he do that? That perfectly coiffed hair, and blue, blue eyes with long lashes tangle in the cords of his muscles, grip him in the depths of his groin until he’s thumping against the mattress as he turns over. He feels like a fucking teenager again, but he wants it so badly, and Tony has never been a person who could control his wants and needs. He always takes; he always has what he wants when he wants it. So, he goes with the flood of emotion, the fire throbbing in his hand and uses the bed for purchase as he grinds out his release. He collapses on his hand, still half hard and wanting. 

He squeezes his eyes closed and tries to forget what he’s done. He needs a god damned drink. He struggles away from the bed, his pants down by his knees trip him up and he falls flat on his face. “Fuck a god damned duck.”

He kicks away at his pants leaving them in a heap on the floor. He should be embarrassed, the cleaning staff that appears during their stay shouldn’t have to pick up his semen stained clothes. Right now, though he doesn’t care. Finding his way to the bath, he turns on the shower as high as he can stand it and as hot as he can tolerate. He stands until he pink from the heat and a bit too vague in his head to care.

*oOo*  
The routine goes like this: by the time Tony actually wanders into the kitchen –if he’s slept at all – Steve has disappeared for a good portion of the day. Tony finds a mug set out for him and usually a note telling him there’s something in the icebox (so adorable) for him to eat. They do this for a little under two weeks and Tony’s not feeling antsy, but domestic and comfortable. 

He thinks he might have gone insane and calls Pepper for affirmation. She just laughs at him and tells him to deal with it. After Japan she ends up back in Malibu but neither of them bring up the idea of Tony going back home. Tony spends an inordinate amount of time in his bedroom with his hot fantasies as his only company. When he does see Steve he keeps visualizing the man on his knees with those lips around his cock.

He decides he is insane.

This conclusion seems especially relevant when he walks down the streets with little cafes and shops, tagging along so that Steve can check out the locals. Tony hangs back with his hands shoved down in his pockets but he watches as Steve charms older women and younger ones alike. The man has no idea how many girls, women, and old ladies swoon in his wake – maybe a few men as well (at least one Tony knows). Steve goes into little art shops and studies the abstracts with a furrow between his brows and a pinched face. He can’t seem to wrap his head around it, Tony knows.

By the time they finish up in town, they’ve eaten and they end up in the large living room. A big bowl of popcorn on the Captain’s lap and the television flickering either a movie or a documentary. Steve has his little notebook out, scribbling details of history or asking Tony what a slang word means. He’s more relaxed but every now and again he flinches at something that happens on the screen or shies away from something Tony says. 

Tony spends this time with his legs bent; his tablet perched on his thighs, and his feet bare. The nights Steve decides he’d rather spend in his room, Tony dismisses the idea that he feels abandon. Those nights, though, are usually when Steve’s encountered a distressing piece of history, or seen something he just couldn’t process, or maybe it was just the color of the sky or the date. Tony can’t pin it down all the time. Worse than the nights are the following days when Steve doesn’t leave his room. Tony fears Steve might be slipping into depression, but he walks out of the bedroom and smiles an apology to Tony. He’s stiffer, more rigid those days as if he’s tighten his control on everything, his thoughts, his emotions, his acceptance of his prison sentence.

One particularly rough patch goes by where Tony actually calls Pepper begging for some advice, Steve has been in his room for three days and Tony’s certain he hasn’t even eaten. Tony’s in mid-rant when Steve rambles out of the hallway. His face looks mashed like he’s been asleep for a long time. He rubs his eyes, smiles at Tony, and goes to the kitchen to proceed to eat for an hour straight – non- stop. As Tony watches this feat, he says good-bye to Pepper and vows that the idiot in front of him is not going to do that to him again.

“We’re going out,” Tony says.

“Out? To town?” Steve asks as he downs a carton of milk.

“Nope, we’re gonna test out that shield of yours.” Tony leans against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest. He’s not in the mood to be denied.

“Um, no,” Steve says and drops the empty carton in the garbage bin. He searches through the refrigerator, pulls out some of their leftovers from three days ago and eats them cold. 

“Not to worry, I’m not going to dissemble it or anything,” Tony says and raises his hands like he’s surrendering.

“Then why do you need to test it?” Steve says between mouthfuls.

“I’d like to get an answer or two to some questions about it. You know, how you throw it and it comes back to you like some bizarre boomerang.” Tony walks into the room and nudges Steve in the shoulder. “Come on, it will be fun, better than being squirreled up all day in your room.”

With a look out of the windows to the long deck and the barren winter trees, Steve purses his mouth as if he swallowing down his reply. Only a slight shake of his head and then he seems to find his footing again and says, “Sure, why not.”

“Okay, great,” Tony replies and claps his hands together.

“You are not touching the shield. Just to get that straight. Nobody touches the shield,” Steve says in his best Captain America voice.

Tony snickers and says, “Well, we’ll see about that. Meet you in ten out the back.” He thumbs behind his shoulder and then races to get his coat and some instruments. It might be twenty degrees outside, but he’s excited and the flush of it warms him. He succeeded in getting Steve out of the doldrums and he gets to play with the shield all in one. Genius, he is genius.

In less than ten minutes Tony is on the deck waiting for Steve to appear. When he does walk through the sliding glass door, Steve has the shield strapped to his back like he had in so many of the old news reels Howard showed him, and he’s carrying a bag of the Cheetos again. Tony scuffs at the bag and Steve only shrugs. 

“I’m hungry. If you want I could chip in for the food bill.”

“I’m not certain you can afford to feed yourself,” Tony mutters and just heads to the stairs. Steve chucks the empty bag in the garbage bin on the deck. Tony jogs down the wooden steps and leads Steve out into the field where there are several standing trees and is concealed from the street by a line of pines. Tony has a bag of equipment slung over his own shoulder and finds a place in a triangle of trees.

“Okay, I’d like you to do it.”

“Do it?” Steve says and it’s painfully clear that Captain America gets sexual innuendo. 

“Maybe later big boy,” Tony comments to which Steve reddens but only slightly. He’s not the blushing virgin Tony surmises then. “You know, fling it around a bit and hit some trees.” Steve tilts his head and lowers his glance at Tony and to his own surprise he blushes a bit. “Just do it, you smart ass.”

In one graceful move, Steve has the shield off his back and launches it into the air. It pings against the tree farthest away from them in the triangle grove, and then hits the corner tree to come back to Steve’s waiting hand. Steve winces a bit and says, “Usually do this with gloves on.” He shakes out his hand. “Anything else?”

Yanking out a camera and a small earpiece, he shoves the bud into his ear and then says, “I’m gonna record it. Now, do it again and, JARVIS, I’d like to see the arc, the trajectory, the force, and power. Plot out the velocity and give me the vectors on it.”

“As you say, sir,” JARVIS says into the ear bud. Tony switches on the camera, ensures that it links back to the house through his personal internet service, and then says, “Be my guest.”

Steve does it again in a motion which is much more fluid and stops Tony dead. He forgets to follow the path of the shield and just stares at Steve as he grabs the shield out of the air when it returns to him.

“Sir, I was not able to take the measurements requested because the camera was not at the right angle. I did take several measurements of Captain Rogers.”

Tony sniggers a bit but let’s that one lie. “Sorry, I didn’t get that, can you try again?”

So, Steve goes through several rounds of throwing the shield as Tony plots its course, tries to understand the complete illogic of it and how it hits the trees to come back time and again to Steve’s waiting hand. While JARVIS is blabbering on about trajectories and numbers, Tony turns back to Steve and says, “Do you eye where you’re going to throw it, do you actually figure it all out beforehand or what?”

“In the heat of the battle, there’s really no time for that,” Steve says. “It’s natural. I see where it goes and toss it to that spot.”

“But why does it come back to you?”

“I’ve no idea. It always worked like that.”

He strides over to Steve and, though there’s only a dusting of snow on the ground, spots red flecks around the area where Steve stands. The shield leans up against Steve’s leg as they discuss. He points to the marks in the snow. “What’s that?”

Steve turns around and notices the red dots in the snow. “Blood?” He looks up at Tony, puzzled.

“What the hell-.” Tony snatches Steve’s hand and examines it. There are several fine slashes across the palm of his hand. The older ones aren’t bleeding anymore but the two latest ones are. “Does this happen all the time?”

“Usually wearing gloves. It’s fine. They’ll close up before we’re done and heal.” Steve squints into the wind. “Do you want me to throw it against the wind or anything?”

“No, I want to throw it.” 

“I already told you, not going to happen.”

“This is not Mjolnir. I can pick it up and wield it.” He still holds onto Steve’s hand. 

“And have you slice up your hand trying to catch it?”

“I’ll throw it, not catch it. I need to see if it is an innate property of the shield and the vibranium or if it’s you.” Tony says and realizes Steve is looking down at their clasped hands. He drops it. “Come on, you like science. You do, otherwise you would never have volunteered to be a lab rat.”

“It was for a good cause.”

“This is a good cause.”

Steve only frowns but picks up the shield and hands it to Tony. For a second, Tony wants to remind him that he doesn’t like to be handed things but that’s not going to cut it, right now. Considering that he’s asking Steve to break something that’s sacrosanct, Tony relents and takes the shield – and immediately drops it.

“Crap, that’s heavier than I thought.”

“Yep.” Steve says and there’s a small bit of told you so in his eyes.

“It isn’t supposed to be heavy. The vibranium is a light metal.” He touches the arc reactor, he should know.

“It is light in comparison to the other shields that your father made. This was the lightest, easiest one to use and handle.” Steve picks it up and hands it back to Tony. 

“I heard Peggy shot you when you first picked it up.”

He laughs. “Yes, she caught me kissing another dame.”

“You go, Captain America.”

Dropping his head to a bow, Steve shakes his head and says, “Always surprises me that people think of me that way. You know I did tour the country with more than a dozen USO girls.” He positions Tony’s hand. “You need to hold it this way.”

“What, wait, are you telling me that you – you and the USO girls? You dog, you!” Tony says with a new appreciation. 

“I’m a man not a mannequin, Tony. Plus, I went to war. I’ve been around the block a few times.” He looks Tony up and down and says, “Probably not as many times as you have or as many different blocks.”

“Hey.”

“Really?”

“Never mind, just show me how to throw the damned thing,” Tony grumbles and heaves the shield up to his chest. Once he gets the balance of it, it isn’t difficult to manage at all. Steve stands astride him and slips his arms around Tony as he places his chest up against Tony’s back. 

“Take it with your dominate hand.” Tony does. “Curl your arm around it, but keep your thumb above. The rise of the shield should be higher than where you’re holding it.” Tony adjusts his position, hyper-aware of the warmth of Steve against his body. His body tenses as he feels the shift and movement of Steve’s muscles against his back even through the layers of their coats. “Then throw with your entire arm and shoulder. You have to put your back muscles into it, or it won’t work well. Give it spin as you launch it.” Steve touches his upper shoulder, and then down the length of his back. “Remember to move your hips with the motion, otherwise you’ll stop dead and throw your shoulder out or your back.”

“This is more complicated than I thought.” 

“Throw.” Steve steps back.

And he does. Right at the tree with a single motion which Tony knows is nowhere as smooth or skilled as Steve’s ability. The shield flies toward the tree but instead of ricocheting against it and bouncing to the next tree in the grove; it strikes and flies right back at him. Steve doesn’t have enough time to catch it, and even as Tony goes to duck he sees it’s coming at a low angle. In milliseconds Steve spins Tony around in a protective hug, while the shield impacts against Steve’s lower back. It sends him off balance and he pitches forward, causing Tony to fall back and smack his head against a gnarled root in the frozen ground. The day light disappears for a second and he sees black swirls and bright lights all at once. 

He blinks and the gray silver sky is above him. He blinks again and Steve’s hands are on his face. He blinks a third time and Steve wraps his arms around Tony. He’s talking, saying things to Tony but the words aren’t making any sense at all. He garbles an _I’m okay_ but he thinks it might come out a little bit like _imaka_ which makes no sense at all. His body feels a bit like jelly and the cold snow is getting his ass all wet.

He mumbles wet, but he’s sure Steve doesn’t hear it because he’s disappeared again. Has Steve left him in the middle of the forest to freeze to death? That’s what he gets for wanting to touch the shield. Tony guesses he deserves it; he never lets anyone play with the suit. Abruptly, Steve is back in the picture and he hoists Tony up into his arms and stands up. It occurs to Tony that Steve’s barely breaking out in a sweat as he trudges over the field to the deck of the house with Tony’s head lying against his shoulder. 

He juggles Tony’s weight when he gets to the door but manages it and finally settles Tony on the couch. The shield is abandon by the side table and Steve disappears again. The cold wind whispers in through the open door and Tony thinks he should say something, but he’s brain damaged so he just stares at it. When Steve returns the first thing he does is close the door and Tony smiles. 

“Any better?” Steve says and kneels down next to Tony with a wince. “Here put this on the back of your head.” Steve reaches up and places the bag of ice against the lump forming on the back of Tony’s skull. “Can you hold it there, Tony? Please?” 

Tony fumbles and his hands look like someone else’s until he realizes Steve grasps his hand and guides it into place. “Just hold it a minute, okay? I have to call the doctor or hospital. JARVIS?”

“No doctor,” Tony says with a wave. 

“You have a lump the size of an egg on your head, Tony. I think you have a concussion.”

“No doctor.”

“Okay, okay but you have to stay awake. Can you do that?”

Tony wants to tell him that modern medicine has determined that it really isn’t necessary to stay awake for a minor concussion. But the throbbing in his head makes it impossible. The next thing he knows, Steve has two pills in his palm and a glass of water. “Take these.”

When he just stares at them, Steve clarifies, “Take these or I call the doctor.”

He takes them.

After Steve situates Tony so that he’s comfortable on the couch with water, crackers, his tablet, and a phone close by, he busies himself with building a fire in the huge stone hearth. As he moves around, Tony notices a distinct stiffness to Steve’s moves. He’s careful the way he sits and grimaces as he stretches. He figures he’s imagining things because he keeps blanking out. Life is like that with too many knocks to the head.

Steve goes to the kitchen and the next thing Tony knows he has a large mug of tea in his hand. He doesn’t drink tea but Steve seems to think it is a necessary medicine with a bump on his head. The two do not equate to him, but he reminds himself he’s completely addled brain anyway right now. He sips the tea in between mother hen checking his head and changing the ice. 

Throughout the evening, Steve checks Tony’s head, forces him to focus on a pencil as he moves it back and forth in front of his face. He fixes dinner which happens to be a homemade soup that is fairly good.

Dog tired, Tony says as he sips, “Where’d you learn to cook?”

“Mom, before she died. And when I was in the orphanage, I helped out in the kitchen a lot.”

“Those nuns put kids to work?” Tony says.

“The nuns taught the kids to respect that they needed to work to earn their way. Besides, kitchen duty was the warmest chore in the place.” He finishes off his bowl as he watches Tony. “You want to see if there’s anything on television?”

“Sure.” Tony really doesn’t mean it. He just wants the pain in his head to go away. 

Steve asks JARVIS to pick out something and the television turns on and the movie, Apollo 13 starts. Steve furrows his brow and asks, “Is this real?”

“It’s a movie based on real life. How much of it is real is up to you,” Tony says. He leans back and waits as Steve checks his ice bag again, decides there’s not enough ice in the bag, and eases himself off the couch to fetch more. The soup bowls are on the coffee table. When Steve returns, Tony observes the same strange gait from before and even the flinch as he sits down.

“Are you okay?”

Steve waves at him and says, “I want to watch this. I’m kinda behind the times here.” 

It is their first movie in a string, by the time Steve asks JARVIS to begin the third movie, Tony’s definitely hoping that he’ll fall asleep at some point so that Tony can escape. Around two o’clock in the morning, Tony gets his wish. Steve has crumpled to the arm of the couch, his long body curl in a ball and his shirt hiked up in the back. 

Tony looks at him for a long moment, the distant dialogue from the forgotten movie running in the background. He wonders how old Steve is. He can’t be out of his twenties just yet, Tony thinks. He considers what horrors Steve has dealt with, what terrors SHIELD has planned for him. It all seems so unfair, but it is what he signed up for, and can Tony complain about it? No, not really. He still wants to see the consent form on that experiment.

When he goes to stand, he catches a glimpse of the rise of Steve’s hip, the naked flesh there. He reaches as if he might touch it, as if he can just once feel the smooth, silk of that perfection when he notices a slightly greenish hue to the skin. He follows it around to the back and pulls up Steve’s shirt to see the spectacular bruise along the small of his back. It’s colored in angry reds, blues and even the older parts of it green. It’s healing, that’s true but it looks like it’s a bitch of a bruise.

There’s an obvious strip and welt where the shield slammed into his back. Tony’s surprised it didn’t shatter his vertebrae and when he touches the spot, Steve jumps up with arms flailing. Tony staggers backwards, manages to only knock the empty soup bowls on the floor, and not hit his own head again. 

“What did you do that for?” Steve says as he rubs against the welt, hissing as he feels it.

“Maybe I should threaten you with a doctor,” Tony says and points to the injury on Steve’s back. “No wonder you’re limping around. Did it fracture anything?”

“Probably, I don’t know,” Steve says and straightens up. He stands and gathers up the bowls. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it’ll heal better on its own than having doctors’ digging around in there while I’m awake. Thank you very much.”

Tony opens his mouth to reply, but finds there’s nothing he can say to that, so he backpedals. “Maybe we need to relax, get out of here for a few days.”

Steve peers over his shoulder on his achingly slow way to the kitchen. “I thought we were relaxing.” He stops then and looks at Tony. “Listen, Tony, you’ve been swell to stay here and all. But you can go, or if you want I can go. I think I’ve worked it out. I think I can go back to SHIELD, now.”

“Really, you want to go back there so they can spend more time pricking you and testing you and following you around.”

“I’ve got to earn my keep somehow,” he calls from the kitchen. 

“You’re really ready to go on missions, to deal with the whole damned thing again?” Tony asks, because he knows he’s nowhere near ready and, for one frightening moment, he doesn’t want to lose Steve, he doesn’t want to lose this, whatever this is.

Steve stands at the entrance to the living room. “I don’t think I have much of a choice. As Captain America, I’m kind of stuck.”

Tony doesn’t believe that for one minute. As Iron Man, Tony has always felt freer to do what he’s liked and when he’s liked. He sets the rules and how the game is played. Lately, though, since the attack and his sacrifice play, he understands a little of what Steve’s stating. People expect things of him, now, as Iron Man, as an Avenger. He’s expected to offer himself to the world. 

“Well, I’ll be damned if we’re not going out on a high.” Before Steve can question him, Tony calls, “JARVIS, get the jet to the closest airport. Spangles and I are going to Vegas.”

“What?” Steve scrunches up his face as if Tony’s shining a bright light in his eyes. “I don’t unde-.”

Tony slings his arm around Steve’s shoulder and says, “You don’t have to. Right now, we are out to have some fun. You need to loosen up. That’s one thing I haven’t taught you, yet. You need to break free, breakdown, something. So, we are going to Vegas.”

Steve still looks dubious. 

“What? It’ll be fun.”

With an eye roll, Steve says, “Sure, sure it will.”

CHAPTER 4  
Two days later, Tony packs the vehicle to get ready for their trip to Vegas. Steve hasn’t shown his pretty little face yet, but Tony already called to JARVIS to have his jet waiting for them on the run way at Buffalo International Airport. He has the back of the SUV open and stows the suit and his luggage. When Steve finally does show up he’s sans shield and any duffle bag. His hands are in the back pockets of his jeans and he is only wearing that and a t-shirt. No shoes, no socks. He’s not ready for travel.

“What’s this?”

“I’m not going.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun. I’ll show you what it means to paint the town,” Tony says and catches hold of Steve’s wrist to drag him back into the house. Steve doesn’t actually resist, but doesn’t walk easily with Tony towing him. He trails behind like a child afraid of his punishment. “This isn’t supposed to be punishment, Steve. You need a big bash. If you’re going back to the lion’s den you should at least have one last hurrah.”

“Going to Vegas might not be my type of thing.” 

“Have you been there before?”

“If I said yes, would it make a difference?”

“No, not at all.” Tony hauls him to his bedroom and grabs the knob. “Now, let’s get moving. No time to waste. Booze, gambling, dames. Come on, Steve.” 

“I just don’t think it would be good, I’m trying to lay low. You know, not let on where I am.” Steve hangs back as Tony opens the door to his room. He steps inside just as Steve tries again to stop him. 

“Holy shit,” Tony looks at the walls, at every vertical surface except for the windows. There are sketches everywhere of people and places and things, so many things. It is like the notebook Steve carries around has thrown up all over the walls. There are no pages pasted to the walls, but the walls themselves are marked with the stories, the notes, the flow of history from when Steve went down to present day all in pictograms. There are gaps and thinner drawings, but it is a continual stream of thought and processes. 

Steve murmurs, “I’m sorry. I thought I could paint it before we left, before you saw it. I just needed to do something. To find some way to stick the things in my brain so I would remember every morning when I woke up.”

“Every morning?”

“Yeah, I wake up and look around and there’s this big blank wall of nothing in my apartment. I stare at it and try to figure out where I am. It usually doesn’t occur to me right away to think when I am. So, I had this idea to put it all on the walls, so I could see.” Steve wanders along the wall, touching it. There are sketches of all of the Avengers, sketches of important people in history. There are timelines and milestones and quotes. It is all like a beautiful steam of thought about the whole god damned human race in the modern age. “I’ll clean it, Tony, I promise.”

“You, no,” Tony says and drops his gaze. He looks back at Steve. “You don’t have to.” His heart aches, feels like its split open and bleeding all over his chest, all over the floor. He’d thought Steve was processing, getting better, feeling as if he’d belonged. How can a genius be such an idiot? “Just leave it.”

“Really, Tony, I can-.”

“No, leave it. Come with me to Vegas, just for a day or two. We’ll come back here afterwards and you can decide whether or not you still need it.” Tony isn’t sure of this course of action; throwing Steve into the snake pit is probably the worst solution to the problem. Yet, sometimes you have to throw the thrusters on full before you can fly.

“Everyone will know you there.”

“Yes.”

“So, we won’t be out of the spotlight.”

“No, very much in it.”

“Then you can see my reluctance.” Steve crosses his arms over his chest and waits.

“What I see is someone who wants to hide. I thought you were braver than that, Captain America.” Tony takes one more look around the illustrated walls of Steve’s room. “Come to Vegas, I’ll teach you how to handle modern day life. I’ll teach you how to handle being a star.”

“I’ve been in the media before.”

“Not like this, you need to learn this as much as you processed all of this.” Tony gestures to the walls. “You need to play the game.”

“I don’t know, Tony.”

“Come on, it will majorly piss Fury off.”

“So is that the reason why we’re going to Vegas? The real reason?”

“One of them,” Tony concedes.

“And the others?”

“Are yet to be discovered, boy scout.” Tony pushes him out of the bedroom and down the hallway. “Let’s go.”

“Then you’ll have to let me get my clothes and the shield.”

Tony relents but at the last minute says, “Just get the shield. We’ll get you new clothes.”

Steve pops his head out of the bedroom as Tony waits in the hall. “What?”

“Just get the shield.” He cocks at eyebrow at Steve, and is rewarded by a hot flush in return. “Oh yeah, baby, get the shield.”

*oOo*  
JARVIS booked them a suite in the MGM hotel; it is the penthouse but not one that is openly advertised. These few suites in the hotel are used by billionaires the world over, but are not open to the public. One of them is specifically for Tony’s amusement. Regardless of when he wants to visit Vegas, it is always open.

They settle into the suite and Tony has a tailor come to the rooms. Steve tolerates the measurements, the suit jackets the little man shuffles him in and out of with care. He stares at himself in the mirror without focusing and Tony’s briefly aware that he’s now playing out scenes from Rain Man. If Steve could count into a six deck pack he’d have it made.

Once they are fitted with clothes and Tony checks Steve’s back – the bruise is only a slight yellow mark now, they are ready to roll. Tony ushers Steve through the suite, with an entourage of assistants assigned by the hotel management. They take the private elevator to the gambling floor and are assaulted almost instantly with the sounds, lights, and the overwhelming nature of all that is Vegas.

Tony’s not sure which is more impressive the way Steve gawked at the lights when they first rounded the corner onto the strip or this moment when Steve walks shoulder to shoulder with Tony into the fray. “Stay close, and keep your head up.” Tony pulls two pairs of sunglasses from his pocket. One, he slips onto Steve as they make the main floor, and then the other he pops on his own face. 

As they turn onto the floor, the assistants are replaced by Stark Industry guards – after all JARVIS knows what he’s doing. Four men and two women surround them in an open but tight circle. There’s no way for anyone to break through the shell encircling them because the guards are less than an arm length a part. He feels the bristle from Steve as the people on the floor make way for them, as cameras turn and flash. 

Tony Stark is well known.

Steve Rogers’s face might not be as well-known as Captain America yet, but that does not deter the frequent camera flashes. He turns away only once to look at Tony, his features a helpless war of embarrassment, abashment, and fear. 

“Stay strong, follow my lead. It’s just like battle, Captain.”

Tony leads them to the craps table and a pile of chips is placed in front of him. He doesn’t have to convert anything, he doesn’t have to ask, his bidding is done without so much as a glance. This is what it is like to be the wealthy and famous. This is what it is like to be Tony Stark. A drink is offered and he accepts. He notes that Steve has his hand around a tumbler as well, though his knuckles are snow white with the way he clamps onto it.

Tony leans in and says, “Easy, Captain. Just watch the game, smile at the girls, and feel the burn of the drink.”

“I wish I could get drunk,” Steve whispers back. The sunglasses have disappeared but Tony doesn’t ask.

Tony braces his hand on Steve’s upper arm and smiles, it is cocky and smooth and nice. The cameras flash like vultures at a feast. Steve follows Tony’s orders but not before he winks and raises his glass. The cameras love him for it.

The gambling starts and Tony throws all caution to the wind. He tosses the dice with wild unrestrained motion, not really caring how much he’s losing or winning at the table. Steve’s more cautious, carefully watching the numbers, calling out the prayers to get the right number to come up. 

The throws are razor sharp with the same precision Steve uses when he flings the shield. The rolls come up and fly and the table gasps as Steve wins again and again. The women are hanging close to Steve, there are cheers and calls. Steve laughs, and smiles and his hair falls over his forehead in a tangled curl. Something unfurls in Tony as he observes Steve, loose, and relaxed, and untroubled. At one point, Steve’s twenty thousand up, but Tony’s fairly certain he has no idea how much the chips are worth and he goes all in. 

As he throws the dice, so surely, so perfectly as he would the shield, Tony bends in close and says, “You know you just bet over hundred thousand, right?”

His throw stumbles and the dice stutter across the table. A moment of silence strikes the table as the dice land and the hook comes to collect all of Steve’s chips. He opens his mouth as if to react, but Tony’s there with a quick flippant remark and the people are staring at him instead of Captain America and his loss. The crowd cheers when Tony offers chips all around the table, saying, “This bets on me. A thousand each.”

“Yes, sir.”

Stunned, Steve allows Tony to guide him through the rest of the crowd. He still looks behind him at the craps table and points a bit. The women cling to them but their entourage of Stark security closes in and forms the dense circle around them. They get to the hallway to the private elevator and the security detail prevents any of the women from following them. A few call their names to them before they disappear into the lift.

Steve sags against the wall of the elevator and cups his face in his hands. “I cannot believe you let me do that.” He rubs his eyes.

“Do what? Have a little fun?”

“Gamble all that money.” Steve gestures as if to an invisible craps table. “It was so much and I just threw it away. I had no idea.”

“I should get you to play high stakes poker, but really, you are a natural at the craps table. Really, it answers a lot about the shield. It’s all you.” Tony has his glasses in his one hand and is tapping them in the palm of the other hand. “Were you always a great shot?”

“I don’t think that’s really relevant right now.”

“Oh, I do, I really do. The ability to roll dice, a six sided cube so you actually get the exact number you want, it’s like some miraculous characteristic or some freakish physical attribute.” Tony tugs a bit at his own hair. He feels like his brain is popping like corn. He’s jumping and skipping around Steve. “We should do more tests.”

“That is really not the point. I just lost over hundred thousand dollars of your money.”

Tony shrugs. “So, I lost more than that.”

“What?” He sounds genuinely shocked, which is sweet and nice and somewhat irritating at the same time. The elevator dings and they exit. “Tony, that’s wrong. You understand, that’s wrong? Right? If you want to give away money, give it to the poor.”

Tony stops because he’s heard enough of this, because he doesn’t want this conversation to degenerate into the thousands of others he’s had in his day. “I do happen to give it to the poor. I have a Stark Foundation where I build schools in developing countries and makes sure young girls as well as the boys get an education. I provide water, fresh, drinkable water to those same places. I flew refugees out of Darfur both personally and through my Foundation. 

“I also help on the mean streets here in America. I’ve set up youth camps and addiction camps, because I know how it is to self-medicate because the world fucks you over. So, yes, I throw some money around, but don’t you tell me how to play because you think I’m not a shining example, a model for the youth today like you are.”

He stomps off to the suite and knows Steve follows behind him. As he swings open the door, Steve says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you didn’t care, Tony. I’m just not used to throwing so much away. I’ve never had that much in my life.”

Deflating, Tony turns around as he closes the door. Steve stands in the vestibule of the suite, yanking at his tie. “I know, I know,” he murmurs. He crosses the space between them and slaps Steve’s hands away from his fight with the tie. Tony loosens it and opens the knot. “Sometimes, you have to forget about the troubles, Steve. They’ll eat you alive. I know, I’m right there with you. Every fucking night I close my eyes and I see what went down in New York. Don’t you believe, I don’t. I think about it every day. I fear it every damned day.”

“So, what do you do?”

Tony slides the tie free. “A little of this, I play, I party, I try to forget once in a while.”

“But it all comes back.”

“It always does.” They’re standing toe to toe, Steve’s hot breath streams over his face like a fall of heat from the sun itself. There’s a ribbon between them, vibrating and alive. Steve looks down at Tony, his eyes slightly lidded, his mouth quietly parted. 

“I don’t know how to deal with it, it’s all too much.”

The subdued light from the arc reactor throws shadows, casting about them in strange reflections. “That’s when you have to let go, you have to just feel and experience and pretend the world doesn’t exist. That it’s only you and the moment.”

“I’ve never done that, I can’t do that.” A soft almost lost sound follows and Tony can only put it down as a muted moan. 

“Why not?” Tony says. “Some part of you has to be for you, Steve. You can’t give it all away, otherwise, in the end there’s nothing to fight for, there’s nothing left.”

“I don’t know-.”

Tony reaches down and grasps Steve’s hand. The string, the ribbon between them, pulses a new. It feels like a physical force, like magnets or electricity, like the well of gravity come to swallow them into the abyss.

“Come, I’ll show you.” Tony pulls him along and Steve follows, a little hesitantly, a little faintly. He goes to the computer console on the wall and calls up his playlist. He hits Etta James and the strains of _At Last_ fill the room. He knows what he’s doing, he’s gambling still. The risk is over the top, he could destroy not only his friendship but the Avengers initiative.

He doesn’t care. “Do this with me.”

Steve is breathless when he asks, “Do what?”

“Dance.”

It takes a moment for Steve to process what Tony is asking. He vacillates as if he’s having an internal debate. He frowns once before he says, “Okay.” His voice is low and rasping like it takes all of his willpower to grant Tony’s wishes. 

Tony leads and the dance is a slow rocking motion from side to side. They really don’t move much at all, and Tony feels the heat of Steve’s shuddering breathes in and out as the lyrics fill the air. No one has to tell Tony, that he’s fulfilling his prophecy of reliving parts of Rain Man, except Steve isn’t his brother, and hasn’t spent his life in a psychiatric ward – just a week. This is different, this is real. 

The solidity of Steve next to him, in his arms brings him into a moment of absolute clarity of what he wants in this life, what he needs in this life. He feels the length and strength of the muscles, the planes of force. With each sway and motion, the ripple, stretch, flex of muscle against bone radiates a realism to Tony which he hadn’t known was there before this moment. He wants to look up at Steve, but he’s terrified of what he might find, a man out of time. A man who’s so fearful of the present he would never chance it and take the offering before him. Yet, Tony does look up, to find a mesmerized Steve staring down at him. The soft full lips still parted as if in hunger or query. His eyes are half lidded and there’s a brush of red on each cheek as if an artist touch him to set him on fire with a paint brush. 

The music moves towards its conclusion and Tony threads his hand upward, toward Steve’s neck. He cups the back of Steve’s neck, he waits. He needs an invitation, this is one thing he will wait for, he will not take freely without permission. Just a slight tilt to his head answers Tony and he leans into the kiss with Steve. 

Lips touch in soft concert. The kiss begins as a prelude to a promise. Mouths close then open in slow motion and a tangle of nerves knots in Tony’s belly. He asks for entrance and is granted, his tongue a curl into Steve’s mouth. He presses further and tastes the bourbon Steve had been drinking earlier in the night. There are little noises that break the silence left by the end of the music. The silence peppers with their gasps for breath. 

He catches no air because he gives it all over to Steve. His need heightens and there’s a constriction as his nerves cry out for more. Steve, once tentative, becomes more needy, more wanting. Both of Tony’s hands are on Steve’s face, cradling it and holding him in place. Steve’s hands have dropped to the slight hollow of his hips. The way Steve touches, the way Steve kisses openly, beautifully, generously, tells Tony he knows this, he understands how to love and be loved. 

It falls into place. The reality of Steve’s life, of his love and his losses comes to Tony and he fights back the need to sob. This man has lost so much, and needs so much. He wants to devour Steve, but he can’t – not until he knows more, not until Steve understands how much Tony comprehends now, how and why Tony is here with Steve and no one else.

No one else.

Reluctantly, he drags himself away and they stop. Foreheads pressed together, breathes shortened, they stay motionless and frozen in each other’s arms. 

“Steve,” Tony whispers. He has no other words, just this, just this single word. He wants it to communicate everything, but it doesn’t. He’s inadequate, even though he’s a genius.

“Tony,” Steve returns but his voice is broken and shattered.

“Let’s go back,” Tony says. He doesn’t want to stay here in this loud place, this place that is the antithesis of everything that Steve represents. “Let’s go back to the house.” They’ve only just been here a day, but he wants to go back.

Steve nods and murmurs, “Okay, yes.” They collapse into one another’s arms, too overcome with the strength of the moment, too weak to do more. Steve’s hand finds its way up and he grasps Tony’s neck and pulls him into his arms. He inhales in the crook of Steve’s neck. He can feel the pulse point of his throat. He’s alive and warm, Tony thinks. He shivers as he realizes how not so long ago, it wasn’t true. 

CHAPTER 5  
Sitting in the jet across from Steve, Tony analyzes the situation. They’re both still in their suits; it only took a little under three hours to get everything ready to get underway. He knows exactly what he is doing, and he’s sure Steve understands it as well. They are leaving this place of loud noises, of lost souls to somewhere quiet and right and substantive. He thinks of touching Steve, of holding him, of being a part of him and it sparks a need. He doesn’t want to have their time marred by anything, especially not the vague promises and innuendo of Vegas, where things happen and then are denied. That is not what this is. 

He wants Steve, he wants to hold him and keep him. He wants to take care of the shattered remains after he breaks Steve, after he tears him apart and sees what makes him function, after he examines each nerve and ending and beginning. He wants to put him back together and hold him in place. He can’t do that in a place that’s known for its carelessness, because Steve, Steve needs care. It shocks Tony to realize it, but he longs to provide that to Steve. This isn’t any school boy fantasy, this isn’t the lust that’s driven him to take himself in hand over the last weeks, this is more.

The plane takes off and a look shifts over Steve’s face that worries Tony. He reaches out and places a hand on Steve’s knee. “Okay?”

He nods. “Just don’t like to fly much, anymore.”

Understandable, Tony should say, but instead he thinks one day he’ll teach Steve to love flying, one day he’ll bring him to the skies and back again cradled in the arms of Iron Man. He abandons the thought for now, and takes on a bigger concern.

“So, Bucky?”

With only a sidelong glance, Steve affirms Tony’s suspicions. He watches as Steve swallows a few times. “It wasn’t like it is now.” Steve is looking into the night as the plane rises through the clouds. “We couldn’t be together, not really. We weren’t until the war, until I rescued him. He had nightmares and I was the only one who could calm him.”

Tony stays silent, for once; he’s able to keep his mouth in line.

“He wanted to find a girl, get married, and have kids. So did I, we all did. But we were at war and, I think, every one of us realized that we’d signed up to die, to be cannon fodder.” Steve rests his head back on the seat. “You took comfort where you could.”

“And now?” Tony has to know if Steve is open to this, a relationship with a man. He has to respect his choice regardless of what it means to Tony’s damaged heart.

“Now, I can do what I want from what I understand,” Steve says but he’s still not looking at Tony. “I found out about-.” He hesitates because Steve is a man from the 40s. “I found out about sex with the girls from the USO. They were nice and sweet and we had a lot of fun.” He smiles as he remembers. There’s a crinkle at the corner of his eyes that makes him look a lot older than he is. “Bucky, Bucky was my friend. He took care of me, I took care of him. I lost him because of my own arrogance.”

“It wasn’t-.”

Steve grips the hand Tony has placed on Steve’s knee. “Don’t say it. No one was there but me. I know what happened, I know I went in there like nothing could hurt me, and I ended up learning that losing someone could hurt me, losing someone I deeply cared for.”

Tony drops his head and closes his eyes as he thinks of Steve’s loss. 

“Then Peggy was there, and she became part of my cornerstone. She helped me. I loved her, I thought I could live a dream with her,” Steve whispers. He rubs circles on the back of Tony’s hand that’s clenched tight onto Steve’s knee. He murmurs lowly, his voice wrecked and barely there at all. “But the dream I want to live now.”

Tony looks up as he sees the wetness in Steve’s eyes, something coils in his belly and he wants Steve to say it but at the same time knows he cannot handle it. Not truly, not right now.

“Tony, I think I -.”

Tony rushes and puts to fingers against those luscious lips. “Don’t, not yet.” Something falls and crashes over Steve and Tony catches him before it is too late. “I want us to figure this out. I want more than declarations. I want to-.” Tony’s brain malfunctions because he can’t get the right words out, and he’s stuttering and reaching and climbing but he keeps sliding down the mountain of emotions that have avalanched over his intellectual brain.

It is Steve who states it. “Tony, I want you to take me apart. I want you to break it all away, what’s holding me back. I want you to analyze me like you do all those diagrams on your computer. I want you to.”

“If I do that I’ll remake you.”

“Then remake me.”

*oOo*  
Somehow, Tony manages to sleep a bit on the plane. It isn’t for long because he’s desperately hyper-aware of Steve sitting across the aisle from him. He’s glad they are not sitting any closer, his brain would catch fire; it is on fire as he thinks of everything, as he plans everything. He wants to take Steve a part; he cannot believe the things he’s contemplating with Steve. He knows when he tries Steve will deny him, but there’s a look in Steve’s eyes that tells him differently, that warns him not to fail.

They are opposites in so many ways, so distant from each other but they work in unison. Steve seeks to lose part of his control in order to feel as if he assimilated into the world. He needs to break a part and be rebuilt like Tony had been after Afghanistan. Rebuilt, remade. They are objects in motion, always moving forward and never stopping to find out what they need. He needs to learn control, Steve needs to learn abandonment. They are perfect teachers for one another. 

The lessons are clear, Tony must learn to take care of another, be available to understand the complete needs of another while shaping his own needs to that person. Steve, he thinks, Steve must release every fiber of control and harness to his steady, balanced self. He must find not only release but true and utter wildness. His inhibitions will kill him someday if he doesn’t relax. These are the thoughts Tony must fall asleep to, because the next thing he knows, Steve is hunched over him and calling him awake.

“We’re here,” he whispers. “Have a long drive in front of us. You sure you don’t just want them to take us back to New York.”

Tony considers it, then Steve. “Do you?”

“No,” he says without pause; there’s something dark and wanting in his eyes.

“Then no, we’ll drive the rest of the way. Get breakfast on the way.”

Steve nods but it’s tight and controlled as if he needs to remind himself to stay that way. It reminds Tony how stiff he was walking with the bruise to his back from the shield. He worries that by the time he has the good Captain all the way to Jamestown, New York, he’ll have succeeded in wrapping up his desire and the flame will be doused. 

As Steve turns to disembark the plane, Tony grabs his wrist and hauls him back. He places both hands on Steve’s face, trapping him and plants a kiss on him. It isn’t anything like the first kiss; it isn’t careful or tender, or seeking. It is hot and lust and desire all bursting forth from his gut. The barbed wires of his need striking out and biting into Steve’s lower lip, trailing a slight taste of blood. Steve groans into the kiss and Tony feels him sway a bit. He clamps his arms around Tony and puts his mouth away at the same time. 

“I want you.”

“You’ll have me.”

Steve bends over to place his head on Tony’s shoulder. Absently, he pets Steve’s hair, down to his neck. “Let’s get some food in you, and then we’ll get home.”

“Home.”

“Yes.”

*oOo*  
Tony believes in miracles because somehow they suffer the three hour drive back to the house, and a stopover to fill up big boy’s belly along the way. He isn’t sure the last time they ate, but obviously from the way Steve wolfs it down it has been too long. 

When they enter the house, JARVIS welcomes them, but then Tony asks for privacy and puts JARVIS in security mode only. He thinks Steve will appreciate some privacy in the next few hours. As they stand there in the kitchen, he hesitates. Steve hangs back as if he’s not sure what to do next and Tony is surprised to find out he’s just as nervous. 

Okay, he thinks, let’s take it a part like a problem. He points to the living room. “Why don’t you just stash your stuff there? I’ll get some wine and some munchies and we can go up to my room. The view of the sunset is great from up there.”

“Okay,” Steve says but doesn’t put down the shield. 

Tony quirks an eyebrow, but says, “Right, no luggage but what we’re having sent from the tailor. You feel more comfortable with the shield with you?”

Steve colors and nods. 

“Understandable,” Tony says and heaves the suitcase with the suit in it for good measure. “Take this, and I’ll meet you there.” He hands over the suit, his heart rebels a little as he does, but he trusts Steve. If you can’t trust Captain America, who can you trust?

Steve grabs hold of the case and slings his shield on his shoulder to disappear down the hallway to the staircase. Tony busies himself with the wine and grabbing some food. He’s not sure if Steve is hungry or not, and he thinks he should probably make a cheese and cracker plate to go with the expensive wine, but instead he opts for the bag of Cheetos and another bag of chocolates. Chocolate goes with anything, sex, wine. Good.

He balances all of this along with some wine glasses as he walks down the hallway. He climbs the stairs to find Steve standing at the long windows looking out at the sun as it melts into the ripples of the lake. The colors are winter colors, never as great as autumn’s fire and not as promising as spring’s, but beautiful and subtle. Nothing like Steve, Steve is more like summer. He leaves most of the food by the bed and joins Steve at the window and hands him the glasses.

Twisting in the corkscrew, Tony lets the twilight wash over him. The sun’s rays redden the grayness of the sky to a muted pink. He wonders what Steve sees with an artist’s eye, with an eye of a man who’s lost in time. As if he reads Tony’s mind he says,

“The sky was bright the day I went down. Bright and blue, and the clouds were like angels.” His voice is barely there. “It wasn’t beautiful like this, this is quiet and peaceful. In war, in the evening as the sunsets you always catalogue the day, find out how many you lost and the world smells like metal and blood and mortar. You hate the sunset because it means the day is over and you have to face what happened and you have to fear the night.”

“You don’t have to be afraid anymore,” Tony says and he wonders if he’s just lied. He swallows back that terror and pours the wine into the waiting glasses in Steve’s hands. He sets the bottle on the window ledge. 

They touch the glasses so they ring in the quiet. A taste and Tony is done with it, done with the pretense, done with the prelude. He takes the glass away from Steve as he finishes his first sip, and puts them next to the bottle on the sill. 

The yearning curled inside of him nearly takes his breath away, nearly pulls and drags his courage from him. But he reaches out and dives in, grasping Steve’s face in his hands. He always wants to hold it, to cup it, to steady him. He presses his lips to Steve’s mouth and whispers, “I want to have you, I want to take you a part. Tell me I can do that, Steve, tell me I can remake you.”

“Yes,” Steve says.

Tony pushes the large man back and he thinks it should be more difficult, but Steve’s legs are weak and he falls back onto the bed easily. Tony crawls over him like a panther hunting as Steve sucks in a breath. He’d made plans, plans of seduction, plans of how this should go over. Instead, he plunges in and doesn’t come up for air. He attacks Steve’s mouth with the hunger he had on the plane. Steve groans and grips Tony so hard on the arms, he knows it will bruise. He doesn’t care. 

Leaning back, he unbuttons Steve’s shirt and helps him out of his undershirt as well. Steve shifts up and does the same for Tony. He pushes down the sleeves of his shirt and then lightly takes off the t-shirt. The arc reactor brightens the ever darkening room. Steve’s hand hovers of the light, Tony can see the light reflected on his palm. Steve tilts his head as he plays with his fingers in the blue sheen.

“I want you to touch it,” Tony says and the deepness of his own voice sends a hitch to his groin. 

Slowly, Steve lays his fingertips on the round curve of it. He circles it around with his index finger, brushing a bit of Tony’s chest as he does. It sends sparks and feels like his nerves are kindling. Steve bends, and places his lips above the arch of it, right where Tony’s sternum splits. It feels intimate, and giving as if Steve blesses it. He forces himself to exhale as Steve traces a line along the scarred skin next to the reactor with his kisses, with his tongue. Just this act, just this simple light touch grabs hold of Tony and he wants to let go, he wants to attack and plunge and pummel Steve, but it isn’t supposed to be about just what Tony wants. He understands that, Tony knows that. He wants to undo Steve, not the other way around. 

As Steve licks a line down to his groin, Tony pushes him back and he falls to the bed. His eyes are dark and there’s no color to them. In contrast, his cheeks are bright red with color. His lips look bruised and wanton. 

“You forget, Steve, I’m taking you. I’m taking you apart.”

Steve shivers against him, not a tiny movement, but a full body roll as Tony pronounces these words. It turns over in Tony’s chest, sends a spear of pleasure to his groin, and he’s undoing Steve’s pants as he leans down to work at the throbbing pulse point of Steve’s throat. He opens and shoves down Steve’s pants with a little help from the subject of his desire. His cock springs free and Steve groans under him as if he’s been in pain for too long with the strain of it.

He understands the sentiment.

He has his own pants undone and tossed on the floor as he kneels and peels off the rest of Steve’s. Steve is back to sitting up again as Tony climbs onto the bed. His heart pounds so that he feels deafened by it. He want so much just to jump on Steve and do him like a horny teenager, but he vows not to, he wants to control this, he wants to show Steve he can be so much better, he can be everything that Steve needs and desires. 

So, Tony touches Steve’s bared shoulders, pressing him back on the bed and feels a tremor of delight reel over him. “Huh,” Tony says as he handles Steve to lie down. When Steve realizes Tony understands his heated desire for being handled, for being controlled, it causes another body shudder that’s violent and beautiful all at once. 

Tony pauses for a moment, to take in all that he must do, to plan, to figure out. He’s a genius but he’s never really figured out people, they are a puzzle, an enigma that has always left him wanting and waiting for something more. At this time, he has to give over himself, he has to focus on what is right for this man in his hands, and not just take what he wants as he has for too much of his life.

“Tony, Tony,” Steve whispers and the glow of the arc reactor shines in his eyes. His words are so ruined, Tony can barely make them out. 

He settles down and over Steve, lining up their groins but not moving, not runting like he wants to. Just the soft glance of tender hot tissue against tender hot tissue engulfs him. He kisses a line across Steve throat, worries at his pulse, and follows the roll of Steve’s desire as it tremors through him. He slides his hand down the length of the hard planes of muscles, down the peaks and valleys of tendons and the strength of the man. He wanders until he touches the tangle of hair and he tugs a bit there and Steve groans in response. Their cocks are leaking, both upon one another and Tony lifts his fingers through the pre-come and glides it down Steve’s shaft until he cries out. He takes the root of his cock and squeezes until Steve arches off the bed and whines a bit. Steve fists his hands into the comforter and rips. He hears fabric tear but ignores it as he brushes over the tender balls, and plays, teases behind them. 

His own desire crests and ebbs and waves until it is like a thunderous crash of waves. He forces it to get under control until at one point he actually has to stop touching Steve and hold onto his dick so he won’t shoot just yet. Steve plants his feet on the bed and looks down at Tony. His eyes are a bit glazed with want, but there’s still a need that is clearly written all over his face. 

Tony moves back and takes Steve’s mouth. Steve grabs for Tony, his hands on Tony’s ass and he grasps him, pushing Tony’s cock against the lines of his leg. It hurts but feels good with the pressure. He bites a little into Steve’s lip and there’s the sensation of Steve shuddering in little pants as his breath catches and hitches along the way.

In a caress of heated touches, Steve moves his hands over and around Tony’s back, to his shoulders and back down again. It feels like flames, it feels like prickles of fire, it feels like every nerve screams and wants and begs. Without thought he starts a steady rhythm against Steve’s hip bone and leg. Steve follows pumping against Tony in juxtaposition. But Tony doesn’t want this; he wants to be able to feel Steve as he pulls him into pieces.

He halts and his own body shivers as he denies it a release. “No, no. I want to have you. I want to be inside you. Steve, can I?”

Steve is looking away as Tony has now learned is his way to hide his expression with his face in profile Tony cannot get a good read on his reaction. But then he turns back to Tony and his eyes are ever more focused, ever more present. He tries to answer, but the words are failing him. Finally, he manages one word. “Please.”

It confuses Tony; he doesn’t know what to do. “You have to tell me, Steve. I don’t want to hurt you.” He brushes the sweaty hair away from his brow. 

He murmurs as his eyes get wider, more fixated on Tony who hangs over him. “Yes, yes, yes.” And then his body rolls in a wave of uncontrolled desire against Tony and it is all Tony can do not to come on the spot. 

“Give me a second, babe. Give me a second.” He leaps from the bed and rummages through a drawer of the night table. He pulls out the lube and the condoms. Finally, he crawls back to slide against Steve and the light is getting darker, too dark to discern the expression of the man below him. “Lights twenty percent.” 

A dim glow from the recessed lights over the windows warms the room. He traces a finger down Steve’s cheekbone, the fine line of his jaw. “Have you done this part before?” Steve shakes his head and closes his eyes. “We don’t have to. It will be enough if you don’t want to.” Tony desperately hopes Steve wants to, that he will ask for it.

And he does.

“I’m gonna make this good for you, babe.” He kisses Steve’s lidded eyes. He pauses at his mouth and kisses there, sharing tastes and holding until he can no longer kiss without breaking for air. He follows the line down to his jaw and throat, stopping only to wrench another shiver from Steve. Then he teases downward, touching lips to nipples and noting how sensitive, how reactive Steve is as he physically holds back a thrust when Tony twists with his teeth on one while playing with the other with his fingertips. The sounds, the reactions are rolling in his belly, sending strikes down to his balls and Tony pants over Steve, wanting so much but also hoping to give so much.

He slips to Steve’s leaking cock and glides a fingertip over it, just allowing enough of the nail to torment the tip so that Steve moans and flinches. “Gonna take you apart, Captain,” he says right before he swallows him down.

Steve arches up and stays frozen like for a for full count of ten before he drops and plants his feet back on the bed. Tony rings the head of his cock with his tongue, playing at the sensitive ridge, then flicking against the vein. Steve moans in frantic little noises as Tony looks up.

“Gonna tear you down, babe, break you apart. Find out what you’re made of.”

“Break me, break me.” Steve agrees. It is only a slight murmur and he’s struggling to say it.

Again, Tony envelops the smooth silk of Steve’s cock in his mouth, letting it hit the roof of his mouth. The taste is salty and bitter and hot. He blows a little as he bobs against it. It rams down hard on his own heavy dick, that’s pulsing with pre-come and hard as stone. He doesn’t dare touch it, not if he wants to hold off.

Steve’s hands are in Tony’s hair, bracing his head and needy in their scrape against his scalp. He places both hands against Steve’s legs and pushes him firmly against the bed, telegraphing that Steve is not to move, not to do this, Tony is doing it for him. He takes his time, he draws it out, licking and tasting and swirling his tongue. The tremors shooting through Steve’s body become almost vicious seizures as he clings to Tony’s hands on his legs. 

“I’m gonna, please Tony, I’m gonna come.”

Tony pauses then draws a long line of pressure against Steve’s shaft. He feels the pulse and clench of the balls as Steve bucks and arches, and then comes in a fierce shudder of his hips. Tony tries to drink it all, but there’s too much and he pulls off, stroking Steve until he’s spent and utterly loose below him.

“Now, we start,” Tony says.

“Wha-what?” Steve can barely pronounce the words.

Tony shimmies a pillow under Steve’s hips as he winks and clicks open the lube. He drops a good portion onto his palm and warms it between his hands before he slides a finger along Steve’s ass. Steve watches him, intense yet at the same time accepting. Tony slowly works a fingertip into Steve and he feels the tension mount. He tries to ease his fears. “Just relax. I’m preparing you. Just sit back, it’ll hurt at first, but I swear you’ll like it.”

Steve grunts as Tony moves in further, his hands twitching at his sides. Tony reaches up with one hand and catches one and then says, “Play with your nipples for me, babe.” In response, Steve’s softened cock twitches and fills. “Huh.” Tony says again and Steve hardens more at Tony’s understanding. “Is it that you like to play with your nipples or you like me telling you what to do?”

His face is in profile again as he looks away, but he manages to reply, “Yes, both, yes.”

“Then by all means, Steve, play with your nipples.”

Steve wretches out a cry and it sounds a bit like he’s humiliated but his cock is harder still and Tony fascinates at it. It must be a result of the serum. No one has that kind of refractory period. Slowly, Steve brings his one hand to his nipple and taunts it with a nail to the edge. “Oh Captain, you can do better than that. Use both hands, twist and pull, tug on them until they hurt, until it burns.”

Another shudder seizes Steve body as he listens to Tony and he obeys. Tony has two fingers in now and working more lube into Steve. He’s moaning and crying out as Tony runs in and out with his knuckles against the tight muscles. Tony places a hand on Steve’s stomach, just above his pubis. “Relax for me babe. Relax into the feeling.”

With his eyes closed, Steve runs his hands over his nipples, tugs and yanks as they turn from pale pink to a heated red. He’s fully engaged in the nipple play and Tony finally gets three fingers in. The wanton, shameless openness of Steve right now, almost undoes Tony. He needs to get in now; he needs to fuck him hard.

He has his hands free and Steve moans at the loss. “Give me a second, babe.” It is all he can do to get the condom on, to slick it up with some lube, and then get into position. “Take a deep breath, babe, then release it and push, it’ll be easier that way.”

He’s not sure Steve heard him but he rams his dick into his ass and feels the give and the shutter of Steve’s exhalation. He’s half way in and he shoves with a final thrust to be buried to the root. Steve is panting and his arms flail about a little as if he’s a man falling and can’t find purchase. His eyes are wide open but he’s not focused, not looking at anything. His mouth opens but no sound comes out.

“Look at me, Steve, look at me, now.” Tony fears he’s losing him. “Come on, look at me.” He pumps a little thrust to try and find the sweet spot, the prostate. Steve blinks but still doesn’t look at Tony. “Please, Steve, look at me, focus on me.”

At last, he looks and his eyes are a blaze. He grabs with his hands on Tony’s arms which are perched on either side of him. He’s mumbling something over and over again. As Tony leans in for a kiss, he hears it. “Break me, Tony, break me.”

It harnesses the tangle of energy deep in his groin the chaotic pleasure that burns so bright and heavy and hot until it scorches every nerve fiber Tony possesses. He slams forward and hits Steve’s prostate. A full body shiver is his response. Tony hits it again and says, “What’s that Steve? What do you want?”

“Take me apart, Tony, take me apart.”

He pushes forward and hits again and again until he feels the choke hold of it in his throat, until he feels the absolute pleasure of it constricting in his balls. He hangs on, stops his orgasm, he wants the good Captain to come first. Tony sets up a punishing rhythm but Steve will have none of it.

“Touch me,” Steve begs. He isn’t breaking. His eyes are crazed in their fierce denial of losing his control.

But Tony denies him. “No, let go. Steve, let go without a hand on you.”

They are in battle, they are at war. He has to pull down all the control, smash the walls, the foundation of Steve. In order for Steve to accept his life, this life, he has to be remade. He can only be remade if Tony can examine him, find him, break him a part. Sweat runs down Tony’s back, to ass. He keeps it up and Steve follows his pace, but will not let go.

“Let go, Steve, let go.” Tony says. 

“Make me.” It sounds like a challenge, it sounds like a plea.

His thrusting is at a frantic pace, he hits Steve’s prostate again and again. The shudders rack his body but he still does not let go. Tony does the only thing that comes to mind. He’s desperate with need, with the want to come, but he cannot until Steve relents. The risk is more than tangible, he can taste it, but he promised the Captain, he promised Steve. So he follows through and breaks the Captain. He stops, braces himself against the bed with his knees and one hand. He meets Steve’s eyes and says, “Come, Steve.” And he slaps him, hard, across his face.

Steve seizes in a rapture of release. His come shoots across his belly, splattering against Tony. His ass clenches and Tony follows. The barbed fire, the thorns of the flames flash out from the pit of his groin and he spasms into Steve, he cannot say he doesn’t blank out as his body comes and comes. Then, Tony is falling, collapsing over Steve, trying to catch his breath as sweat and semen slicked bodies touch and press against one another. He pulls out, takes off the condom, ties it and tosses it aside. 

Slipping to the side of Steve, Tony throws his one leg over the man. He feels a shudder, but different than before. It is subtle and light as if he’s cold. “Come on now,” Tony says and eases the Captain to the side so he can pull the comforter over them. He looks down at Steve and sees his wrecked features, there are tears stains and for a moment terror grasps Tony. 

“Babe, babe?”

Steve wraps his arms around Tony and hides his face in the hollow of his neck. His words are shallow. “Thank you, Tony.”

Tony closes his eyes. He wants to cry, he wants to rejoice. He’s done it, he’s done what was needed and Steve is still in his arms. He kisses his temple, his forehead, and pushes away the wet hair. He holds onto Steve and pets and strokes his back, his face, his chest. He wonders what else Steve might let him do, what other ways Steve might need to be undone. But that is for another time, now he needs to finish the job, now he needs to show he deserves to have control over Steve, that he cares enough.

“Let’s get cleaned up, then we can sleep.” 

Slowly, Tony’s able to get Steve to stand up. It warms Tony that Steve is so relaxed, so loose. He leads Steve to his en suite bathroom with its large walk in shower. He settles Steve on the toilet first, and tells him to go as he starts the water. He gets it to a warm temperature, then checks on Steve and gets him to his feet again. He walks him over to the shower and they both get in. As Tony soaps him and washes them both, Steve leans against Tony. 

He says in a low voice, almost a growl and most certainly a challenge, “I want you to do that again.”

“Now?” Right now, Tony’s not sure he can add two plus two.

Steve laughs and it sparkles his blue eyes. “No, but soon.”

“Good, because hell if I can even figure out basic math,” Tony says as he rinses the shampoo out of Steve’s hair. “You liked it?”

“Yeah, it was good. I liked-.” He looks away; it is difficult for him to say.

“You liked it when I hit you?” Tony says and feels the rise of heat from the words. 

“Yes,” Steve murmurs as he cups his hand over his groin. 

Tony pushes his hand away even as Steve struggles not to show him his hardened cock. “Stop it.”

The command sends another full body roll through Steve and Tony has to grab him so he doesn’t collapse in the shower. “Oh babe, we’re going to have worlds of fun.”

*oOo*  
By the next morning, Steve curls about Tony in his bed and when slumber leaves Tony doesn’t startle awake from a nightmare. Sleep leaves in ever lessening waves and he blinks awake to find Steve huddled around him, as if protecting him. It feels right and good and somehow comforting.

He reaches out and kisses Steve’s temple and then looks over to the clock. It is only five thirty in the morning and they had been up late. He slips quietly from the bed, tiptoes to the bathroom, cleans up some, and ends up splashing water on his face. He looks a little drugged out and he just might be. Fantastic sex with someone who he cares about will do that to him, he supposes.

He stops as he towels off and thinks of Pepper. He’d never given it a thought to go out to see her while he was in Vegas for the day. He was on the other side of the country and he never considered it. The thought never crossed his mind. Peering out of the bathroom to see Steve lying on his side, the tangle of hair making him look much younger, Tony contemplates how different this relationship is from the one he has – had with Pepper. 

Steve has benefited from Tony’s relationship with Pepper. She taught him to care about other people, to be concerned about how others would react and feel about his actions. He hadn’t been able to implement her lessons for her, and he still feels guilty about it. Why is it, it had been so easy to care about Steve’s needs, but put his own needs last? Why could he do this for Steve and not for Pepper?

He slinks back into the room, rifles around in his pants to pull out his phone, and ends up in the small sitting area in the back of the suite. He calls Pepper.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Here, yes, where you are no. Since I don’t know where you are that would be a feat if I did.”

“Tony, I’m sleeping.” He hears something in the background and can’t decide if it is a dog’s growl or if Pepper is just hungry. 

“Are you eating correctly?”

“This, from you?”

“I worry about you.”

“Since when?”

“Since always,” Tony says and continues over the noise. “Do you have a vacuum on? Tell me the maid isn’t there while you’re sleeping, because that would be a little strange.”

“Tony, what do you want?”

“I wanted.” He looks up at the ceiling, the open ceiling with its rough pipes and gears and duct work exposed. The skylights start to shine with the reflected morning sun. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

“Tony.”

“I’m not- I’m not trying to get you back,” Tony says. “I just want to say I understand. I get it, now. I get how much I fucked up.”

“Tony, you didn’t fuck up. We just didn’t work together.”

“So, then I’m saying I get it- well, not that exactly – but I do get it.” 

The noise in the background shifts and there’s a grumble. He hears Pepper move and something muffles the receiver and then she’s back on the line. “Well –I don’t really know what to say.”

“You don’t have to-.” He is interrupted by another voice from Pepper’s end of the line.

“I’m getting some water, do you want something?”

“Who was that?” Tony says, because that was definitely not a dog – it was more like a person, more like a person he recognizes. “Fuck a duck, Pepper are you sleeping with Happy? Why the hell is my driver in Malibu?”

“You lent him to me.”

“Not to sleep with.”

“Completely inappropriate remark, Tony. I’m hanging up.”

“He’s my driver, you can’t have him – even if you already had him, had him.”

“Good-bye Tony.” 

The phone clicks and he’s left staring at the Stark Phone in his hand. He looks up and Steve with only low slung boxers on stands against the window frame considering him. There’s no direct morning sunlight since the bedroom faces west, but the arc of the windows and the skylights capture enough of it to brush Steve’s flesh with tones of amber and gold. 

“Good morning,” Steve says. His shoulder still straight and broad look, somehow, more relax, softer. Immediately, Tony stands because has to touch, he has to caress.

He threads his hand into Steve’s hair, thumbing along his jaw line. “Good morning, babe.” He kisses Steve, full and rich and hungrily. 

When they break, Steve’s breathless and swaying a bit under Tony’s hands. He comes back to himself quickly though and says, “I have to, I’m going for a run. Haven’t been out in days, feel like I have to get back to it.”

“We could work out here,” Tony offers and raises an eyebrow.

Steve dives in for another kiss and it becomes a long session of tongues and teeth and throats. Tony’s eyes are unfocused and wavering but Steve still pulls back and says, “Later?”

Tony nods, later yes – maybe he says it, maybe he doesn’t. He’s mesmerized by Steve; he realizes he’s totally fucked because of it and he doesn’t care – and that says so much. Steve kisses him on the cheek and turns to go but not before Tony smacks him on the ass. He stops and braces himself as if he’s fighting off one of those body shudders, then peers over his shoulder and winks at Tony before he leaves.

Oh yes, totally and absolutely fucked. And he loves it.

*oOo*  
He’s antsy waiting for Steve to return from his double marathon or whatever the hell he’s doing running around the damned lake. There’s really nothing for it, so Tony decides the best medicine is the workshop. He hasn’t touched the suit in days, and he needs to finish his analysis of the articulation of the joints. 

By mid-morning, he finds himself in what feels like knee deep information on knee joints, knee replacements, and artificial orthopedic extremities. JARVIS has everything displayed for him and there’s a comparison of the suit’s joints exploded out so that he can compare natural anatomy of the knee, to replacements, to artificial extremities, to what he’s working on now. Mid-conversation with JARVIS on understanding the flexibility of the natural joint, a call comes in.

“Sir, it is Director Fury.”

“Ignore.”

“Sir, he has called a total of fifty eight times. Four of those this morning and another ten of those yesterday.”

Tony shrugs, and rests his head back. Time to pay the piper, as they say. “Put it through JARVIS. Might as well get this done.”

“Stark?”

A visual of Fury appears on one of the screens. He even looks pisser on digital display than he does in person. “What may I do for you, oh thorn in my side?”

“Can you explain this?” Fury taps something out of sight of the camera and suddenly the fed turns to a series of still photographs of Steve and Tony side by side on the floor in the MGM hotel in Vegas. It switches to another photo of Steve tossing the dice at the craps table. “And please enlighten me on this one.”

Another screen runs a montage of photos and then a reporter appears to discuss how Iron Man and Captain America painted the town in Vegas. The woman points out the Captain’s uncanny ability to throw the dice precisely enough to hit run after run of wins, only to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars on one throw.

“It wasn’t hundreds, maybe a hundred, tops hundred fifty.”

“Seriously, Stark, this is what you’re going to say to me.” Fury re-appears on the screen. His arms are crossed and his face puckers. Tony thinks if he had two eyes laser beams would be a probability with the man. “You take a national icon, a symbol of America and mom’s apple pie and you sully him, Stark, you sully him.”

Tony cocks an eyebrow and thinks about last night. Oh the tales he could tell. He demurs. “I took him out to loosen him up a little. Have you seen the Captain lately? Fuck, Fury, the guy is so tight you could shove a -.”

“Vegas? And you have him play craps.”

“It seemed like the logical choice.”

“Slots are the logical choice.”

“For my grandma,” Tony says. “I know he’s from gramps’ age, but the guy is like twenty five going on a hundred and five. He needed this and no one got hurt.”

“Except his reputation, he stands for something; he stands for all of the Avengers. I need him to be clean.”

“He’s clean as a whistle.” Tony thinks of how he scrubbed him nice and bright after he’d thoroughly debauched him. “He’s good.”

“No, Stark, I cannot trust you. You are a damned lose cannon. I ask you to watch him, to take him away so that he can process and what do I get. I get this-.”

“Tony?”

He spins around in his seat and Steve is standing at the entrance way to the workshop. In the distance, he hears Fury asking if that’s Steve, to put him on the line. Tony slams the console and immediately the call disconnects. 

“Hey, Steve.” Tony jumps down from the chair and walks to join Steve. He wants to usher him out of the room, remove him from the memory of the damning evidence.

“He asked you to? He asked you to watch me?” Steve says. His hands are braced on either side of the door frame. He stands there like a wall, non-moving, brick and mortar.

He doesn’t want to say the patented response in this scenario, but it is all that he has and it is so true. “It isn’t what you think.”

“Really? Because I think Fury came to you and told you to watch me, like all the other damned SHIELD operatives. I think all this time when I thought I got away from it all; in fact I was in the viper’s nest. That’s what I think.” Steve folds his arms across his chest, but he’s leaning on the doorjamb now, and still blocks the exit. He’s vibrating with energy, but not the good kind, the horrible kind.“You’re no better than the rest of them.”

“I did not agree to watch you for them. I agreed to make you disappear from them. For you. I did that.”

“But you also agreed to watch me. What are you going to report, Tony?”

“Nothing, Steve, let’s not do this, because this is not happening.” Tony runs a hand through his hair, and then says, “I told them no, but you came and asked me to help you. I thought it might be fun to fuck Fury over and take you away.”

“You expect me to believe that? You were talking to him, about things we did together.” Steve puts both hands on the crown of his head and says, “Damn it, what did you tell him? Everything, damn it. Did you tell him everything?”

Tony puts up both hands and says, “Do not freak out on me. I didn’t tell him anything. We were just talking about Vegas. We made the news, it ticked Fury off.”

“So I suppose you accomplished what you set out to do, piss off Fury. And yes, I do swear. We already had this conversation.” Steve drops his arms and turns around like he might leave, but then he spins on his heel and is right in Tony’s face. The anger bleaches everything out on his face. “I trusted you; I trusted you and you’re no better than all those SHIELD agents. At least, Natasha was honest with me when she was assigned to watch me.”

“You can trust me, Steve. I would never tell Fury. It isn’t about that.” 

Steve glares at him for another few seconds, and then turns and leaves without another word. Tony sighs and says, “JARVIS, give me one good reason why you did not warn me that Steve was standing at my doorway.”

“Captain Rogers requested that I not inform you, he wanted to surprise you, sir.”

“Shit.” Tony hangs his head and tries to settle the racing in his brain. Thoughts collide and he cannot get a grasp of any of them. One thing rings true, though. He does not want to lose Steve. He strides out of the workshop and makes his way up the stairs to the entrance to Steve’s room. 

Standing with his back to the door, Steve has his duffle bag on the bed and is stuffing clothes into it. The shield rests on the bed as well. 

“Steve.”

“I’m not running away, Tony. I’m not.”

“Then what are you doing?”

Steve drops the shirt he’s holding and turns around. His face is flat without emotion as if he’s been stung and paralyzed, like his frozen in the ice. “Like I said, Tony, I need to get away and process. Maybe I just need to get away from everyone I know.”

“You don’t,” Tony says and inches into the room. The pictures all over the walls taunt him.

Steve runs a hand through his hair and, for the first time, Tony realizes it is wet. He must have come back from his race around the lake and taken a shower first thing. “Yes, yes I do. I keep depending on everyone to lead me into the future. But I have to admit, this isn’t the future, this is the present, my present. I have to realize what I call the present is really just the past. I have to do this on my own, not with you, not with anyone.”

“Please, Steve.” Tony clamps down mentally, holds on to his heart because it’s wretched and cleaving and terrible. He hates the feel of it in his chest and he just wants to tear it out and away. 

“I wish I could stay, Tony. But to know, to even have the doubt that someone is watching me, hovering.”

“I want to be there for you, I can help you.”

“I want you to help, but not like this,” Steve says and goes back to finishing his task. “Not when you feel obligated to someone else.”

“God damn it, I am not obligated. Have you ever known me to be obligated to anyone? Shit, I am fucking Tony Stark. I don’t answer to others.”

Steve zips his bag closed and shrugs on his bomber jacket. “No, no you don’t. You don’t answer to anyone, don’t feel obligated to anyone. That’s right.”

“That is a fucking low blow, after last night.”

Steve pauses for just a second, and Tony thinks he has him, has won a little concession. “You’re right. I’m sorry, now I have to go.”

He slings the shield on his shoulder and Tony knows he only has moments before this breaks down and breaks a part. He rushes to Steve’s side and grabs him, holds him, presses their lips together. He gains entrance, easily and Steve leans into him. He tastes the toothpaste Steve must have used; he wars with him for purchase and pushes Steve up against the wall. Steve’s hands are two fists in his shirt, ripping and tearing at the shoulder seams. 

Suddenly, Steve uses his grip and pushes Tony away. It isn’t a hard push but gentle, almost careful. “I have to go.”

“Don’t, don’t do this.” Where desire resided in the deep core of him, twisted, mangled regret and pain grows. “Don’t.”

“I can’t stay, Tony. Not now, not when everything’s so wrong.”

“Everything?”

Steve raises his hand and cups Tony’s face. “Not everything. But I still need to leave. I can’t stay where I don’t know if it is the best place for me.”

“It is the best place.”

“I want it to be,” Steve says and presses his forehead to Tony’s. “But I don’t know, now. I don’t.” Before Tony can say another word, Steve moves away and picks up his duffle. “Good-bye, Tony.”

He starts away and Tony races after him. He marches down the hallway in military proficiency. He’s coiled tight like a snake ready to strike. He turns to look at Tony and says, “Please don’t follow me. I don’t want to be watched. Please, Tony.”

Before Steve makes the door, Tony grabs the keys and calls, “Take the bike, at least take the motorcycle.” He throws them to Steve and he catches them. Staring at them for a long minute, Steve glances up at Tony. He knows, he knows Tony is giving himself a way to at least see Steve again to get the bike back. “You can always leave them at SHIELD.”

Steve nods and walks out the door.

Tony stumbles to a stop. He knows he could follow but, he stands there paralyzed by his own fears, by his own emotions welling and growing. 

Lost, lost, lost.

He can only think about how he’s lost him. Lost. Everything, every motion is stunned, stunted, and stopped. He can hardly breathe, he cannot speak. There are no words. He’s lost everything that matters to him. 

The engine of the bike roars to life in the garage and he hears it peal out of the drive way, kicking up gravel as it does. He doesn’t look at the window, he doesn’t watch Steve leave. He staggers back into the kitchen, sees the table is set for a dinner. Steve cooked dinner, there’s wine glasses and plates and god damned Cheetos. He laughs until he cries.

He lost his love, and he hadn’t even recognized it when he had the privilege to touch and hold and be with him. Looking down at his hands, Tony recalls the feel of Steve’s skin under his palms, against his fingertips. It is an ever present yearning, a touch which has changed him. And he realizes then it is not the physicality of the touch but something less tangible, less substantial. It is love.

THE END.

**Author's Note:**

> I truly enjoyed writing this story and I do hope to continue this in a series. I wrote this in a week, so if you find any issues (I really did try to edit - I took out a whole section) please tell me. Also, please tell me if this was worth it, if you want to see the next part, if you have wishes and dreams for this series. I know this was a difficult ending, trust me, okay? I hope to have another story up by the mid-March. I have the next part planned, but that does not mean I cannot play around with the events.....Thanks so much!
> 
> Updated to say - it looks like the sequel will be a little later than I thought - happens when the whole family gets sick.


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